One thing that CHOR LAU HEUNG 1979 has turned me on to is the idea of Japanese characters (specifically as antagonists) in wuxia. Gu Long apparently went there sometimes, but Jin Yong never did. In Jin Yong's wuxia universe, foreign adversaries are always steppe nomads from beyond China's northern and western borders, never seafaring people from the islands in the Eastern Sea (e.g. the Pacific Ocean). Granted, Japanese adversaries are more of a trope in stories set in the early Republican era (e.g. when China and Japan were actually at war) than in wuxia, but Jin Yong seemed much more reluctant than Gu Long to bring Japanese elements into his stories.