Wuxia resources

[golden arhat]

any recomended online books ,books, pdfs, free rpg's anyone ?

[The Xia]

Here is a good article. It also explains my forum name.
http://www.heroic-cinema.com/eric/xia.html

[golden arhat]

i knew what your name was b4 that
the question is do u actually act as a knight should do ? lol

[The Xia]

You tell me oh golden, holy, enlightened one.

[golden arhat]

ah ah ah i am not holy merely enlightened
i will quote what my dad said to me
"those of you who think you know everything infuriate those of us who do"

[golden arhat]

i couldnt comment on your actions as i havnt seen them this gives me an idea

[Zenshiite]

Wuxiapedia

Great resource. Has some partial and complete translations of various authors' works. Links to amazon for those books which have official translations too. Other assorted information on the genre and characters.

I believe there is an online RPG for Romance of the Three Kingdoms somewhere, as well as a free e-book translation.

[Li Kao]

Was just looking up some box office numbers and though I hate to say it, the numbers are grim indeed ...

The domestic gross for the latest Zhang Yimou movie, Curse of the Golden Flower is pretty abysmal -- a paltry 6.5 million. This is especially bad considering the downward trend his wuxia films have taken. Hero took in almost 54 million here (no doubt largely due to Jet Li) and his next, House of the Flying Daggers nabbed a considerably smaller 11 million (let's face it -- regardless of whether or not it was a worse movie or not, Zhang ZiYi and Andy Lau just aren't a huge draw yet in America). I consider Curse of the Golden Flower to be the weakest of this trilogy, but given the acting duo of Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li, I am really disheartened to see such low numbers. You have to wonder how this will bode for future movies of this genre -- if someone like Zhang Yimou can't get butts in the seats, what chance do lesser known directors have of getting similiar works shown here? It would seem the wave that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon created has all but dissipated.

I suppose the good news is that other martial arts films are faring better. Tony Jaa continues to build steam -- Ong Bak earned 4.5 million and then he jumped to 12 million with the recent Protector and is becoming a bit of a "cult" favorite. And Jet Li is still a strong draw -- Fearless took in a very respectable 25 million, roughly the same as his previous film, Unleashed.

While numbers are certainly not the end-all judge of a movie, they do have an effect on what films make it to the big screen, and the genre as a whole, with a few exceptions, seems on the downturn again. Will it be long before all martial arts oriented movies (and HK/Asia imports specifically) will be relegated to straight-to-DVD status ala Van Damme and Seagal? Other than Tony Jaa and Jet, do you see any potential stars that could rise above the pack and become icons? (I think we are all rooting for Donnie Yen). Anyone else have any theories or thoughts on these numbers/trends? Gene, Jethro, Jimbo, PangQ, Xia, Dr. Reid -- love to hear your takes ...

[Hishaam]

The question here is what really captured the interest of the regular movie goer, i mean for those that didn't know that this type of movie existed before seing Crouching tiger hidden dragon.

[doug maverick]

you have to factor in how many theaters, the film is in. i think fearless was in like 11 hundred or or so. golden flower was deffently in less probably like four thousand if that much. so the numbers reflect the theaters. as for the wuxia genre, i don't think its dying i just think the filmmakers don't put any substince, just beutifull camera work, a weak story and boring martial arts. the why croaching tiger did well and fearless(not a wuxia movie btw) and hero did well was there were good fight scene's in them. america loves a good fight.

[Li Kao]

Obviously, the theater number has a huge effect on a movie's gross in as much as it at least puts a ceiling on how many tickets can be sold. However, if a movie is successful, it will then increase the theater showings. Not sure where you got your numbers, but this may suprise you: according to www.boxofficemojo.com, the gap in theaters between the 2 movies was not really that much: at its widest release, Fearless was shown in 1,810 theaters and Curse of the Golden Flower was shown in 1,234 theaters -- I will say that Fearless had better marketing.

I think you are right though about the whole weak plot and dearth of good fight scenes -- maybe directors would fare better here in the U.S. if they made an edgier, more violent movie than trying to make it so picturesque and artful.

[Jimbo]

I think the wuxia genre really began to fizzle after Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. IMO, what happens is, a movie is released that is unique to the U.S. mainstream audience; it gains a good following; then the filmmakers in China go on to try to capitalize on what they saw was unique to that audience, i.e., impossible flying, CGI/wire work, "exotic" Chinese stories with beautiful camerawork. But the films of course become a bit worse each time, and the emphasis on cinematic artistry and over-the-top flying battles overextends people's credulity. It becomes like watching a videogame and the uniqueness factor is gone.

It's been my observation that movies nowadays no longer make the impact they did, say, in the '70s and the '80s. Back then, if a movie was a hit, it was remembered for a long time, even to this day. Since the '90s or so, movies are more and more forgettable, even the gigantic hits. They are lost in the jumble of more and more films, and a quick DVD release, sometimes when the films are still in the theaters. As an example, compare fairly recent big hits like Titanic, Lord of the Rings, etc., to the impact that Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark made in their heyday.

People's attention spans have shortened considerably, and thus their patience with repetitive themes (such as the recent subtitled wuxia films) wears thin very fast. Things now change very rapidly, and so must the genre evolve or die.

On the brighter side, Jet Li's Fearless was an excellent film, and it did well in the theaters. I'm not sure if part of its draw was the novelty of the catchphrase, "Jet Li's final martial arts epic" or not. However, I tend to separate Fearless from the wuxia type films, as it was a true "martial arts film," as opposed to a wulin/swordplay film.

[Li Kao]

I wouldn't consider Fearless a wuxia movie either -- probably the closest he has done to wuxia would be Kung Fu Cult Master -- Fearless being more of a period-piece straight up kung fu movie. Semantics aside, I think you hit the nail on the head about the whole "novelty" aspect of this genre, at least in terms of mainstream American audiences. Crouching Tiger was the movie that sparked the public's interest and was something new and fresh, and all of the subsequent films eventually wore out the interest of the public, to where you have Curse of the Golden Flower barely making a dent.

I know I beat this topic to death and have probably brought up the same kind of argument in several other threads, so forgive me if I sound like a broken record lately, just something I'm passionate about.

[Zenshiite]

It seems wuxia is losing ground in China from what I understand. Mainly because there's nothing really classic about most of these films and their cast with nothing but pop stars and starlets.

Isn't Tsui Hark's Seven Swords supposed to be hitting US theaters? That I want to see, and I'm sure I could go down to Chinatown and get it... but if it's supposed to be his answer to LOTR, it could do well in the States. If it can capture the imaginations of the audience it'll do good.

I think there's very little creativity even in wuxia now... especially coming from Zhang Yimou. Sure, every frame looks like a painting, but that's about all it's got going for it. At least wuxia in the 60s and 70s was interesting. Think about Jimmy Wang Yu and how most of his characters ended up disabled in some way. One-armed Swordsman, and Soul of the Sword are great movies.

Interestingly enough, though, there's an American author about to get his first novel published... and it's a wuxia novel taking place in the Tang dynasty.

[jethro]

To me a wuxia movie is Swordsman 2. I love to also look back on all of the old ones. Hell, I guess Chinese Super Ninjas could be considered wuxia, there were just so many of them. It was around even before straight-up kung fu movies. 'The Duel' is probably the movie that killed everything, at least for me. i didn't think Crouching Tiger was that great, but I didn't think it hurt the genre at all. I think what really killed it lately is Curse and The PRomise. Curse is not a wuxia, and teh PRomise is a bad one. Hero I would consider wuxia, it's not based off of a novel, but you have people flying around and all. Maybe no one will come along and the genre will just die. Zimou is the only real chance we have, and you can't really rely on just 1 person. At least we can look back at the 100's upon 100's of movies that were made in the 60's and 70's. WAng Yu's 'The Sword' is coming out soon

Edit-OMG, I only read the first 5 or 6 posts. I actually just put this comment up without reading the last one. That is just weird.