Novel -vs- TV adaptions

[Felix]

May I ask if you watched DOMD 2000 before the 80's versions? And also did you ever see other HSDS before you saw the 2000' version?

The reason I ask is that I find people tend to favour the first adaptation they saw. Most of us agree that HSDS 2000 sucks, but that doesnt mean that you are not entitled to enjoy it. I just want to know which one you saw first.

Most of the time, that's how it is.

I mean, as much as most of us love LOCH82, ROCH83, and HSDS86 for example, I am pretty sure there are bunch of 70s generation kids who find those series to be crap and they praise LOCH76, ROCH76, and HSDS78 instead.

Michelle's Huang Rong is comparable to Barbara's and Adam's Cheung Mo Kei is comparable to Tony's. So, add the fact that the actors/actresses are comparable and the fact they would have seen the 70s version first, I am pretty sure they think us 80s fan are so wrong, like how we tend to think the 90s fan are so wrong.

[Wellesley]

There's also this dreaded possibility, seldom considered, and little discussed: the first adaptation we see of a wuxia novel is so GOD WRETCHED AWFUL that it just turns us off to that story forever and ever.

It happened to me with SMILING PROUD WANDERER. I saw TVB's risible 1984 version with Chow Yun Fat and I haven't been able to spark up any interest in SPW ever since. That awful 1990 Sam Hui movie (which had a great theme song, but not much else to recommend it) compounded the problem for me. People tell me that SPW is the greatest wuxia novel ever and possibly Jin Yong's best work, but I just can't get into it because the TVB '84 adaptation and the Sam Hui movie just ruined this story for me forever.

Has State of Divinity 1996 redeemed this story is your eyes? That's the only SPW adaptation I watched and I think Jackie is the best LCH ever, plus the adaptation is 90-95% accurate to the novel. Very entertaining.

And I consider the novel to be the complete story, with all the details, while the adaptations are a resume of the story, due to time constraints. If the adaptation had every scene and every line of dialogue, the number of episodes required for that would be too high.

An anime can surpass the manga, because mangas have less written text than novels. And it's easier to draw a character corresponding to its manga counterpart than to find a person who looks the part and can act correctly. Plus movies and adaptations are easily prone to modifications for marketing purpose. For example, give the female character a bigger role in the TV series in order to cater to a wider audience (boooo Legend of Dagger Lee 1999 where Lin ShiYin is more prominent than "Ah Fei" (he's not like Ah Fei at all))

[Ken Cheng]

Has State of Divinity 1996 redeemed this story is your eyes? That's the only SPW adaptation I watched and I think Jackie is the best LCH ever, plus the adaptation is 90-95% accurate to the novel. Very entertaining.

So I hear, but SPW '84 and the Sam Hui movie just totally destroyed SPW for me. I couldn't bring myself to watch SOD '96.

Besides, it's a post October 31, 1988 production and I'm funny about stuff made after that date.

To top it all off, the star was Jackie Lui...whom I don't hate and have nothing personal against, but he was Joey Meng's first boyfriend and that just makes it...weird for me.

[wuyuejin]

The reason I ask is that I find people tend to favour the first adaptation they saw.

In fact I watched HSDS 1986 first, then HSDS 2003. The former has been praised by quite a few people to be the best adaptation of HSDS ever but I just don't like it 'cause the make-up was too fake and the costumes were damn ugly. Jeez, Sheren Tang is quite pretty in real life but they made her ZZR look totally crappy. If I give Gao Yuanyuan's ZZR or Charmaine Sheh's ZZR 10 points in terms of looks, the ZZR of HSDS 86 will be given only 1! Not to mention Liang Chaowei acted very clumsily in the role of ZWJ. It's hard to believe the same man would later become one of the biggest names in the Asian film industry.

[jhudsui]

The only story I've seen multiple adaptations of is LOCH and I definitely prefer the second one I saw (2003) over the first one (1982).

[sniffles]

I'm watching XAJH 2001 currently, and even though it varies significantly from the book I'm enjoying it because the casting is just so perfect. The only character I've seen so far who doesn't quite fit my mental image is Tian Boguang. I imagined him younger and more handsome, even though the book never really describes him physically. But I like the actor who's playing him, so I'm enjoying him anyway.

[Ghaleon]

Speaking of HSDS 86, they just released a new digital transfer of it on DVD

There's also this dreaded possibility, seldom considered, and little discussed: the first adaptation we see of a wuxia novel is so GOD WRETCHED AWFUL that it just turns us off to that story forever and ever.

It happened to me with SMILING PROUD WANDERER. I saw TVB's risible 1984 version with Chow Yun Fat and I haven't been able to spark up any interest in SPW ever since. That awful 1990 Sam Hui movie (which had a great theme song, but not much else to recommend it) compounded the problem for me. People tell me that SPW is the greatest wuxia novel ever and possibly Jin Yong's best work, but I just can't get into it because the TVB '84 adaptation and the Sam Hui movie just ruined this story for me forever.

Ken, you should try SOD 96, it's very good adaptation of smiling proud wanderer. BTW what did you think of the Jet Li Swordsman II movie?

I felt the same way with DGSD 80's. I thought it was so awful that I was hesitant to try another DGSD. Luckily I stumbled upon DGSD 97.

[Ken Cheng]

Speaking of HSDS 86, they just released a new digital transfer of it on DVD

I can't do SPW again, man, I just can't. It's permanently ruined for me. My dad told me it was the greatest Jin Yong story ever...better than LOCH, ROCH, and DGSD, and it'd be incredible. Instead, I have permanent, traumatic memories of...

1. A once great actor looking bored and going through the motions.

2. CASTRATION

3. People cast in roles they were about five years too old to play.

4. CASTRATION

5. Funky, DRAGONBALL-Z like hairstyles.

6. CASTRATION

7. A story that got increasingly incoherent as it went on.

8. CASTRATION

9. Macho wuxia men treating each other like teenage lovers...except they're BOTH straight men?! WTF?! Said men tried to write a song together, which had SOMETHING to do with the main story of the main characters, but that the TV series could *never* explain in a simple, understandable manner for some reason!

10. CASTRATION

11. Everybody, from second-rate hamandeggers to the # 1 Fighter in the World shooting out lasers from their noses everytime they sneezed.

12. CASTRATION

13. B.S. sword techniques that "can't lose," but aren't really explained.

14. CASTRATION

15. Two and a half hours of people flying around in the dark in robes with no unifying narrative to tie it all together.

16. CASTRATION

17. An age 40+ pop singer (still visibly recovering from the effects of a near-fatal oxygen deprivation incident) playing a peppy 25-year old wuxia hero.

18. CASTRATION

19. *Lightsabers*

20. CASTRATION

BTW what did you think of the Jet Li Swordsman II movie?

I couldn't tell you. I didn't watch it. I was afraid I'd see one (or more) of the twenty elements I named above.

I felt the same way with DGSD 80's. I thought it was so awful that I was hesitant to try another DGSD. Luckily I stumbled upon DGSD 97.

I actually liked DGSD '81. I had no idea that the ending was way different from the novel's ending until YEARS later, and when I found out how it really ended, I was actually kind of disappointed that it didn't end like the series did.

[ChronoReverse]

KC, what you watched was Smiling Proud Wander.

Forget that abomination. I recommend you watch other shows instead. There's plenty of those. There's this one called State of Divinity that was quite good.

[Ghaleon]

Ken,

you are really missing out because I regard SPW as Jin Yong's masterpiece as well. You should definitely check out both XAJH 2001 and SOD 96.

Regarding DGSD 81, they ruined Sweeper Monk scene They also ruined the ending scenes by forcing a big bad villain plotline. That was way too cliche in the lines of Luk Siu Fong III.

[ChronoReverse]

Incidentally, I've just started to watch LOCH94 after reading Moin's review and even then I'm quite pleasantly surprised how it follows the novel very closely.

The only problem is Extreme Special Effects Failure (I just got to the panther scene).

[kidd]

State of Divinity 96 is one of the best wuxia series that comes out from TVB in the 90s.

[ChanceEncounter]

Well of course the novel is going to last longer than the TV adaptation.

The TV adaptation merely seeks to adapt what is already to a new medium. It's not the canon, it's not the Holy Grail. The Novel is.

At the same hand, if people started publishing novels to adapt to movies, they wouldn't be anywhere near as popular either. Case in point: Star Wars. The movies are the original, and each movie has a novelization. Guess which one people like better?

The original source is going to be king much more often than not.

As far as film goes, it still produce a lot of classics considering how modern of an art it is, and how technologically dependent it is. Films such as Citizen Kane and Casablanca are classics because, like books, they tell timeless and compelling stories.

[ChronoReverse]

At the same hand, if people started publishing novels to adapt to movies, they wouldn't be anywhere near as popular either. Case in point: Star Wars. The movies are the original, and each movie has a novelization. Guess which one people like better?

Have you read the novelizations for the Star Wars movies? They're far more coherent and enjoyable than even the movies most of the time. I could only suffer to watch RotS twice for instance but I've reread the novelization many times.


Don't get me wrong, I understand your point, but I don't agree with it. It's often the case adaptations are poorer than the source, but there are occasional times where the adaptation can surpass the original (in anime I can immediately think of two cases: Angelic Layer and Kara no Kyoukai).

[ChanceEncounter]

I'm not saying the novelization doesn't have its merits, even over the original source material. At the same time, you can probably point to instances in adaptations where the adaptation explains more clearly, more dramatically, and more tautly the events of the novel than the novels themselves.

But at the same, the original source (in this case, the JY books and the Star Wars movies) are going to be the more timeless classics that people (by and large) like more. In this case, the Star Wars books philosophy is already pushing the envelop of the analogy, because the books were produced with the same braintrust the produced the movies.

Furthermore, the adaptations aren't intended to supercede or supplant the books. It's merely putting a different artistic spin on the subject material.

[ChronoReverse]

And I'm saying that may be true some of the time or even most of the time. But it's not true all of the time. That is all.


As a sidenote, I'm really liking this sequence in LOCH94 that shows how his 6 masters truly confused him with contradictory styles when teaching him. One master would tell him to use more power and then the next would tell him that he's using too much brute force and should be gentle.

[pannonian]

Incidentally, I've just started to watch LOCH94 after reading Moin's review and even then I'm quite pleasantly surprised how it follows the novel very closely.

The only problem is Extreme Special Effects Failure (I just got to the panther scene).

There's a panther in LOCH? Are you talking about ROCH here?

[jadebunny9]

There's a panther in LOCH? Are you talking about ROCH here?

No, I'm think the panther part refers to Guo Jing's childhood, when he got bullied by that one other guy who was going to marry Hua Zheng later.

[ChronoReverse]

No, I'm think the panther part refers to Guo Jing's childhood, when he got bullied by that one other guy who was going to marry Hua Zheng later.

Yup yup.

As long as I ignore the really bad CG in LOCH94 it's enjoyable.

[jadebunny9]

Yup yup.

As long as I ignore the really bad CG in LOCH94 it's enjoyable.

LOCH 94 is actually my favorite version and I've seen all versions except the one in the 70s and the latest 2008 one. It definitely followed the novel closely, and sometimes that's really all I want in a wuxia adaptation. No need fixing up the story or being more creative about it if the original story is already good. There were a few miscasts here and there, but overall it wasn't abominable.

BTW, Athena definitely had more than just 2 sets of clothing. She had around 4 or 5. Even if it's not a lot, it looked nice on the eyes and wasn't too flashy.