A Jin Yong Primer - The Others
Apr. 7th, 2021 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
douqiHaving covered what I think are the classics in the previous post, I'll deal with the remaining novels in (mostly) publication order, then the novellas and novelette in publication order.
The Novels
The Book and the Sword (书剑恩仇录 | 書劍恩仇錄): Jin Yong's first novel, and I think it shows. It does show case a different type of organisation - the society: a group of individuals brought together not by bonds of blood or teaching, but by a common cause, in this case the overthrow of the Manchu-led Qing Empire and the restoration of Han rule. Features a protagonist who may be even more frustrating than the protagonist of The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre. The book features several important Uyghur characters, whose depiction Jeannette Ng calls 'decidedly racist,' and I defer to her opinion on that, mainly because I don't know enough about the surrounding history and partly because I haven't reread it recently enough to form a view. Certainly I remember the portrayal of the Uyghur love interest Kasili (aka 'Princess Fragrance') as being both infantilising and exotifying. There is an English translation by Graham Earnshaw, published by Oxford University Press. Of the Hong Kong adaptations, the 1976 one has an all-star cast list. The 2008 mainland adaptation can be found subtitled here.
The Sword Stained with Royal Blood (碧血剑 | 碧血劍): Set during the last days of the Ming Dynasty, and prominently features several historical figures: the general Yuan Chonghuan (who is the protagonist's father), the Chongzhen Emperor and his daughter Princess Changping, and the 'Dashing King' Li Zicheng, the rebel leader who ultimately overthrows the Ming Dynasty. The notional protagonist, Yuan Chengzhi, is possibly the blandest one in Jin Yong's oeuvre. He's outshone by the anti-heroic swordsman Xia Xueyi, who appears only in flashback. There's an arc involving members of the 'Five Poisons Cult', who are heavily coded (if not outright stated) as being ethnically Miao. Jin Yong handles their depiction about as well as you might expect, i.e. not at all: the most prominent female member of the cult ticks the stereotypical 'seductress', 'ruthless' and 'devious' boxes. Has had relatively few adaptations, and I don't remember any being thought of as particularly iconic. The most recent one is the 2007 mainland adaptation, which can be found here.
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, or Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain (雪山飞狐 | 雪山飛狐): The shortest of the novels, this is often billed as Jin Yong does Rashomon, though Jin Yong denies being inspired by Rashomon at all, in the afterword to this book. A group of jianghu adventurers gather at a mountaintop manor, and it soon becomes apparent that they all have some sort of connection to a century-long feud between the four bodyguards of the 'Dashing King' Li Zicheng (see entry for The Sword Stained with Royal Blood). Has one of the most infamous open endings in wuxia history. There is an English translation by Olivia Mok, published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. Television adaptations often combine this book with its prequel, so I'll discuss them in the entry for the prequel, below.
The Young Flying Fox (飞狐外传 | 飛狐外傳): Prequel to the above. Kind of retreads the events prior to Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain without adding very much. The bright spot (and main reason to read the novel IMO) is Cheng Lingsu, medical + poisons genius and Jin Yong's sole canonical average-looking female lead. I don't know very much about the various adaptations, but if you're looking for faithfulness to the novel, the 1999 Hong Kong adaptation should probably not be your first choice, as it rolls several female characters into one. I also can't find any easily accessible English-subtitled adaptations, but a new mainland production has just begun filming.
A Deadly Secret, or Requiem of Ling Sing, or Secret of the Linked Cities (连城诀 | 連城訣): I think of this as Jin Yong's working-class novel: the protagonist is a young peasant who never achieves any particular prominence in the jianghu. The book is suffused with pain, suffering, and most of all, betrayal: all the 'good' characters go through A LOT, and the best they can hope for is some sort of a quiet life. Perhaps not surprisingly, there have only been two adaptations. The 2004 mainland one is here, though without English subtitles.
Ode to Gallantry (侠客行 | 俠客行): You'd think 'Twelfth Night meets wuxia' would make for a rollicking read. You'd be wrong. According to Baike, this book is all about the impossibility of knowing yourself and controlling your own fate, but frankly I just found it a bit of a mess (possibly because I'm not smart enough). If you avoid one Jin Yong novel, avoid this. The most promising adaptation seems to be the 1989 Hong Kong one, mainly because it stars Leung Chiu Wai (Tony Leung) and Tang Shui Man (Sheren Tang). The 2002 and 2017 mainland adaptations can be found here, though there are no English subtitles.
The Novellas
White Horse Neighs in the Western Wind (白马啸西风 | 白馬嘯西風):The only Jin Yong wuxia work to feature a female protagonist (and one raised in a non-Han environment, to boot), and beautifully elegiac in mood. However, the depiction of the Kazakh community is problematic, to say at least, as is the part where the protagonist's supposedly elderly father figure is revealed to have been a handsome young man all along. Still, I would put this ahead of the two other shorter works. There are two adaptations, a 1979 Hong Kong one and a 1984 Taiwanese one, neither of which I have been able to find.
Blade-Dance of the Two Lovers, or The Mandarin-Duck Blades (鸳鸯刀 | 鴛鴦刀): I have very little memory of this, though I definitely read it at least twice, which probably tells you a lot. I vaguely remember it as 'Jin Yong does married-couple-comedy'. Would place this at the bottom of the list of shorter works. No television adaptations.
The Novelette
Sword of the Yue Maiden, or Yue Maiden's Sword (越女剑 | 越女劍): Set during the Spring-Autumn period, with Fan Li, actual historical advisor to King Goujian of Yue, as the protagonist. Revolves around his quest to improve Yue swordsmanship so that they can mount a successful attack on the Wu kingdom. In the course of this, he encounters the titular 'Yue Maiden', master swordfighter A-Qing (nb: I refuse to believe, as Fan Li does, that A-Qing learned her skills from a white gibbon or that she is in love with him, Fan Li). There is a 1986 Hong Kong adaptation, linked here, which adds a lot of original material (though there are no English subtitles).
Next time: A Gu Long Primer - The Classics
The Novels
The Book and the Sword (书剑恩仇录 | 書劍恩仇錄): Jin Yong's first novel, and I think it shows. It does show case a different type of organisation - the society: a group of individuals brought together not by bonds of blood or teaching, but by a common cause, in this case the overthrow of the Manchu-led Qing Empire and the restoration of Han rule. Features a protagonist who may be even more frustrating than the protagonist of The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre. The book features several important Uyghur characters, whose depiction Jeannette Ng calls 'decidedly racist,' and I defer to her opinion on that, mainly because I don't know enough about the surrounding history and partly because I haven't reread it recently enough to form a view. Certainly I remember the portrayal of the Uyghur love interest Kasili (aka 'Princess Fragrance') as being both infantilising and exotifying. There is an English translation by Graham Earnshaw, published by Oxford University Press. Of the Hong Kong adaptations, the 1976 one has an all-star cast list. The 2008 mainland adaptation can be found subtitled here.
The Sword Stained with Royal Blood (碧血剑 | 碧血劍): Set during the last days of the Ming Dynasty, and prominently features several historical figures: the general Yuan Chonghuan (who is the protagonist's father), the Chongzhen Emperor and his daughter Princess Changping, and the 'Dashing King' Li Zicheng, the rebel leader who ultimately overthrows the Ming Dynasty. The notional protagonist, Yuan Chengzhi, is possibly the blandest one in Jin Yong's oeuvre. He's outshone by the anti-heroic swordsman Xia Xueyi, who appears only in flashback. There's an arc involving members of the 'Five Poisons Cult', who are heavily coded (if not outright stated) as being ethnically Miao. Jin Yong handles their depiction about as well as you might expect, i.e. not at all: the most prominent female member of the cult ticks the stereotypical 'seductress', 'ruthless' and 'devious' boxes. Has had relatively few adaptations, and I don't remember any being thought of as particularly iconic. The most recent one is the 2007 mainland adaptation, which can be found here.
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, or Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain (雪山飞狐 | 雪山飛狐): The shortest of the novels, this is often billed as Jin Yong does Rashomon, though Jin Yong denies being inspired by Rashomon at all, in the afterword to this book. A group of jianghu adventurers gather at a mountaintop manor, and it soon becomes apparent that they all have some sort of connection to a century-long feud between the four bodyguards of the 'Dashing King' Li Zicheng (see entry for The Sword Stained with Royal Blood). Has one of the most infamous open endings in wuxia history. There is an English translation by Olivia Mok, published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. Television adaptations often combine this book with its prequel, so I'll discuss them in the entry for the prequel, below.
The Young Flying Fox (飞狐外传 | 飛狐外傳): Prequel to the above. Kind of retreads the events prior to Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain without adding very much. The bright spot (and main reason to read the novel IMO) is Cheng Lingsu, medical + poisons genius and Jin Yong's sole canonical average-looking female lead. I don't know very much about the various adaptations, but if you're looking for faithfulness to the novel, the 1999 Hong Kong adaptation should probably not be your first choice, as it rolls several female characters into one. I also can't find any easily accessible English-subtitled adaptations, but a new mainland production has just begun filming.
A Deadly Secret, or Requiem of Ling Sing, or Secret of the Linked Cities (连城诀 | 連城訣): I think of this as Jin Yong's working-class novel: the protagonist is a young peasant who never achieves any particular prominence in the jianghu. The book is suffused with pain, suffering, and most of all, betrayal: all the 'good' characters go through A LOT, and the best they can hope for is some sort of a quiet life. Perhaps not surprisingly, there have only been two adaptations. The 2004 mainland one is here, though without English subtitles.
Ode to Gallantry (侠客行 | 俠客行): You'd think 'Twelfth Night meets wuxia' would make for a rollicking read. You'd be wrong. According to Baike, this book is all about the impossibility of knowing yourself and controlling your own fate, but frankly I just found it a bit of a mess (possibly because I'm not smart enough). If you avoid one Jin Yong novel, avoid this. The most promising adaptation seems to be the 1989 Hong Kong one, mainly because it stars Leung Chiu Wai (Tony Leung) and Tang Shui Man (Sheren Tang). The 2002 and 2017 mainland adaptations can be found here, though there are no English subtitles.
The Novellas
White Horse Neighs in the Western Wind (白马啸西风 | 白馬嘯西風):The only Jin Yong wuxia work to feature a female protagonist (and one raised in a non-Han environment, to boot), and beautifully elegiac in mood. However, the depiction of the Kazakh community is problematic, to say at least, as is the part where the protagonist's supposedly elderly father figure is revealed to have been a handsome young man all along. Still, I would put this ahead of the two other shorter works. There are two adaptations, a 1979 Hong Kong one and a 1984 Taiwanese one, neither of which I have been able to find.
Blade-Dance of the Two Lovers, or The Mandarin-Duck Blades (鸳鸯刀 | 鴛鴦刀): I have very little memory of this, though I definitely read it at least twice, which probably tells you a lot. I vaguely remember it as 'Jin Yong does married-couple-comedy'. Would place this at the bottom of the list of shorter works. No television adaptations.
The Novelette
Sword of the Yue Maiden, or Yue Maiden's Sword (越女剑 | 越女劍): Set during the Spring-Autumn period, with Fan Li, actual historical advisor to King Goujian of Yue, as the protagonist. Revolves around his quest to improve Yue swordsmanship so that they can mount a successful attack on the Wu kingdom. In the course of this, he encounters the titular 'Yue Maiden', master swordfighter A-Qing (nb: I refuse to believe, as Fan Li does, that A-Qing learned her skills from a white gibbon or that she is in love with him, Fan Li). There is a 1986 Hong Kong adaptation, linked here, which adds a lot of original material (though there are no English subtitles).
Next time: A Gu Long Primer - The Classics
