Wuxia in chronological order

[Tony B]

First I would like to thank Foxs for his help in completing my Condor Hero trilogy series in English.

Second, I would like to ask a complicated question of all Wuxia fans.

I am English with a Chinese wife and nieces who have helped me to break into the Wuxia novels and films. I thanked Foxs because my wife and nieces all have different views on the translations and as the only fluent classic Chinese to English person in our family (my mother in law) passed away many years ago, I have to rely on these inferior relatives to help me. LOL.

I started with The Water Margin and moved onto the 3 Kingdoms. From here, I watched HSDS (2003 version) in Singapore and became hooked on Jin Yong works. At this point, my interest in Chinese history was well under development.

I have watched dozens of Wuxia films but found that if I collated them into a chronological order, it made more sense.

Has anyone tried to list all of the various books/films in chronological order and if so, any chance of a list?

P.S. As I said to Foxs, my favourite of all is the Ashes of Time….very deep and possibly one of the most underrated films in the Wuxia realm. I have watched it several times now and understand the underlying story more each time I watch.

[whiteskwirl]

If you want to learn more about wuxia, it's best to start at its origins, before it had developed to what is now called wuxia. Talk of the xia began with Han Feizi, briefly, but got its first developed treatment by Sima Qian. I recommend the following dissertation as the best place to start. It's a great read: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/10902

[Ian Liew]

The best way to try to list the various wuxia tales is to acquaint yourself with the various Chinese Dynasties - there aren't really that many major ones so it's easier than it sounds - and then try to place the tales in the various settings. The Jin Yong novels are fairly easily placed chronologically based on the dynasties as well as the ruling emperor as Jin Yong liked to integrate his stories into the historical settings. Some like Smiling Proud Wanderer might not be as easy to place to the exact reign but it's easily identifiable as having taken place during the Ming Dynasty. I personally believe it was towards the end of the Ming, at least late Wanli if not later, given the negative perception of the Ming court by the martial arts fraternity as well as the corrupt official mentality.

Jin Yong wrote 15 stories in total, and they're arranged roughly as such:-

Yue Maiden - pre-Qin, during the Yue/Wu war
Demi Gods and Semi Devils - Northern Song
Legend of Condor Heroes - Southern Song, towards the end of the Jin
Return of the Condor Heroes - towards the end of the Southern Song
Heaven Sword Dragon Sabre - end of Yuan
Smiling Proud Wanderer - mid to late Ming
Sword Stained with Royal Blood - end of Ming
Duke of Mount Deer - early Qing, reign of Kangxi
Book and Sword - Qing, during the reign of Qianlong
Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain - Qing, Qianlong
Other Tales of the Flying Fox - Qing, Qianlong

Secret of the Linked Cities, White Horse in the Western Wind and Mandarin Duck Sabres are all in the Qing Dynasty, although I'm not sure where to place them. Ode to Gallantry is in the Ming Dynasty, and again, I have no idea where to place it.

If you were to take all writers into account, it would be quite a long, and possibly speculative list, though.

[PJ]

P.S. As I said to Foxs, my favourite of all is the Ashes of Time….very deep and possibly one of the most underrated films in the Wuxia realm. I have watched it several times now and understand the underlying story more each time I watch.

If you liked Ashes of Time, check out Tsui Hark's Blade (1995) and another little-known film called What Price Survival (1994). They also have a non-traditional narrative style and cinematography, perhaps influenced by Ashes.

Legend of the Flying Swordsman (2000) is another less successful attempt.

I'm interested in non-traditional wuxia films like these.

[whiteskwirl]

The best way to try to list the various wuxia tales is to acquaint yourself with the various Chinese Dynasties - there aren't really that many major ones so it's easier than it sounds - and then try to place the tales in the various settings. The Jin Yong novels are fairly easily placed chronologically based on the dynasties as well as the ruling emperor as Jin Yong liked to integrate his stories into the historical settings. Some like Smiling Proud Wanderer might not be as easy to place to the exact reign but it's easily identifiable as having taken place during the Ming Dynasty. I personally believe it was towards the end of the Ming, at least late Wanli if not later, given the negative perception of the Ming court by the martial arts fraternity as well as the corrupt official mentality.

Jin Yong wrote 15 stories in total, and they're arranged roughly as such:-

Yue Maiden - pre-Qin, during the Yue/Wu war
Demi Gods and Semi Devils - Northern Song
Legend of Condor Heroes - Southern Song, towards the end of the Jin
Return of the Condor Heroes - towards the end of the Southern Song
Heaven Sword Dragon Sabre - end of Yuan
Smiling Proud Wanderer - mid to late Ming
Sword Stained with Royal Blood - end of Ming
Duke of Mount Deer - early Qing, reign of Kangxi
Book and Sword - Qing, during the reign of Qianlong
Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain - Qing, Qianlong
Other Tales of the Flying Fox - Qing, Qianlong

Secret of the Linked Cities, White Horse in the Western Wind and Mandarin Duck Sabres are all in the Qing Dynasty, although I'm not sure where to place them. Ode to Gallantry is in the Ming Dynasty, and again, I have no idea where to place it.

If you were to take all writers into account, it would be quite a long, and possibly speculative list, though.

I disagree that listing the novels by chronological setting is the best way to go. If one wants to know the literary history (or film history) of the genre, then listing the works in order of publication is the only way that makes sense. In your list, you have Duke of Mount Deer right before Book and Sword. So you have Jin Yong's last novel placed right before his first. How could one see the evolution of the genre if he were to read the books in that order?

And where does it end? Should all authors' work be mixed together based on chronological setting? In that case, Wang Dulu's Crane-Iron series would go after many of Jin Yong's works, even though Wang Dulu wrote his novels much earlier, and in fact did much to popularize the inclusion of romance into wuxia novels. So I don't see how it would be beneficial to group works based on the setting of the story.

[Ian Liew]

I disagree that listing the novels by chronological setting is the best way to go. If one wants to know the literary history (or film history) of the genre, then listing the works in order of publication is the only way that makes sense. In your list, you have Duke of Mount Deer right before Book and Sword. So you have Jin Yong's last novel placed right before his first. How could one see the evolution of the genre if he were to read the books in that order?

And where does it end? Should all authors' work be mixed together based on chronological setting? In that case, Wang Dulu's Crane-Iron series would go after many of Jin Yong's works, even though Wang Dulu wrote his novels much earlier, and in fact did much to popularize the inclusion of romance into wuxia novels. So I don't see how it would be beneficial to group works based on the setting of the story.

I did not say that it was the best way to read it, but was answering a query regarding the chronological order of the novels. It depends on your personal interest. For myself, I have an avid interest in Chinese history, but due to my lack of a Chinese education, I am less interested in the academic side of writing styles and such, and so while I wouldn't necessarily want to read the novels in chronological order, it has always been a habit of mine to place when a novel was possibly set when I am reading it (which helps with visual imagination in my mind as to the feel of the story), while I've never really bothered whether a novel was early or late in a writer's career. For me, the best way to go is to get recommendations from friends as to which novel I would like and tackle each one as a project (I read Chinese very slowly, and need the help of a dictionary at times) by itself.

[Tony B]

Thanks guys, I think that how you look at Wuxia depends on how you want to read/watch it.

For me, history is very important and a lot of Chinese history is covered in the various books/films. For example, even Jin Yong refers to the Water Margin, which was the first Chinese novel I ever read (1980s Hong Kong). Since this, I have broadened out and enjoy both non Wuxia and Wuxia style novels/films.

I needed to know the geographical locations of the various regions at certain points in history. This enabled me to build up a map in my mind as I read/watch the stories. To read about characters that are already dead and how they died before I read the book in which they appeared sort of ruins it for me. I like to read the beginning first and the ending last. I have a Chinese nephew who will always go to the end first and then tell everyone what happened. (His life on this planet will be short!).

So thanks again for the suggestions so far, they are appreciated very much. I will be holidaying in the Far East over Chinese New Year time and am planning to visit as many famous places from these novels as possible. My Kindle is loaded up with the various translations that the wonderful people on this forum have supplied.

If you liked Ashes of Time, check out Tsui Hark's Blade (1995) and another little-known film called What Price Survival (1994). They also have a non-traditional narrative style and cinematography, perhaps influenced by Ashes.

Legend of the Flying Swordsman (2000) is another less successful attempt.

I'm interested in non-traditional wuxia films like these.

Thanks very much, I will obtain a copy. I appear to be the only member of our family (and the only Ang Mo) who enjoys deep meaning novels and films. I enjoy the multitude of plots and underlying meaning behind them. I think that the writers/directors are very gifted.

Thanks again to everyone and especially to the hard working translators.

Tony

[Dirt]

My only complaint with Ashes of Time was them leaving out Duan Zhixing/Yideng. They had that blind swordsman instead. They also didn't have Wang Chongyang.

[kidd]

With my level of Chinese reading skill, I wouldn't want to tackle the old novels first because the writing are more classical and harder to understand. Books written by later wuxia novelists are easily to understand. That's why I like Gu Long's later works. Short paragraph, short chapter, with easy to understand words.