The Birth Of Wuxia

     It all started with a man, his toilet, and an idea. Zhang Sichuan, a 1920's film director, quickly rushes to the bathroom before his stomach explodes. He brought with him one of his son’s novels to read because he knew it might take a while.  Zhang was so intrigued by the story that he came up with the idea of putting written words into film. And so the genre of swordplay was born. Well maybe it didn’t exactly happen this way, but it sure is fun to think so. Fun, to me, is the exact word to describe this genre. From the first swordplay film to the current releases this genre has consistently amazed audiences with its special effects, choreographed fight scenes, and melodramatic stories. In this text, I give a brief history of the Chinese swordplay genre and how it has evolved through the years along with some of its more notable stars. I also substitute the more accurate word for this genre "wuxia" in place of the word "swordplay."

     The wuxia genre is actually a sub-genre to the American action/adventure film. US movies were imported by China in the early 1900's. Not until the 1920's the Chinese studios create their own films. Producers intelligently adapted stories from popular Chinese literature to their scripts because there was already an audience for it. Chinese viewers also grew tired of Hollywood’s inaccurate portrayals of their culture and society. They wanted something they could call their own and that would represent the Chinese culture correctly. The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, a silent film about the rescue of a commander held captive in a temple full of traps, was released in 1928. The director, Zhang Sichuan, adapted the film from the novel The Tale of the Extraordinary Swordsman. The movie sold out for 23 days straight. Its initial success lead to more productions of wuxia films including 18 sequels. But wuxia never became a solid genre due to the Chinese government’s bans on films that they thought harmed the mentality of its audience. At the early stages of the genre the Chinese government minimized their participation in the creation of movie scripts. They were more worried about a Japanese invasion than supervising film studios. The government gave the studios considerable freedom about the production of wuxia films. But as popular literature evolved, so did films. What once were stories purely for entertainment and escape became stories that criticized government ideology and the strive for personal freedom. In order for the country of China to grow and not fall behind the US and other progressive nations the Nationalist government and Communist party of China concerned themselves with stability and control. They sided with ideas like the advancement of science and technology. On the other hand Chinese citizens, mainly those of lower class, found it difficult to adjust to modernization. Citizens blamed Confucianism on their inability to move forward. If authors and producers wanted to keep their audience, they had to create stories that would appeal to the people. The newly evolved wuxia stories made it seem ok for ordinary people to criticize a form of government they disagreed with. The Chinese Nationalists and Communists were outraged and began to label the wuxia genre as unprogressive. Politicians also disliked the competition between the studios and themselves about who were the authentic representatives of China and its history, but stopping the production of wuxia films would only increase the public’s negative attitude toward their government. Ironically, the Chinese government found a way to get rid of wuxia through the Japanese hostility. Japanese aggression in Manchuria and the Shanghai bombing created a patriotic and nationalistic mood among Chinese people. Politicians urged the public to unify under their government and back them in their decisions in order to get through their ordeals. Interest in wuxia flicks started to wane. This made it easier for the Chinese government and the National Film Censorship Committee to put a ban films that they felt threatened political unity and contained superstition and religious subjects. Many of the wuxia films that were made around the 1920's and 1930's were lost due to the ban.

About the Author:

An insomniac anime freak who lives for watching a whole series in one night.  Loves to practice martial arts moves specially after seeing a Jet Li flick.  Jumps off the bed at least once a day just to see if he can finally fly.