Posted in: TV | Tagged: Legend of the Condor Heroes, lord of the rings, Wheel Of Time

Epic Wuxia Universe TV Series Outshines "Lord of the Rings," "WoT"

The ambitious wuxia adaptation of Jin Yong's novel Legend of the Condor Heroes one-ups "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Wheel of Time."

Wuxia dramas and movies might be on the wane right now, but there's a sprawling epic new TV series that's currently outdoing The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time. It's the most ambitious attempt at an epic story I've seen on TV for a while, and it's – what else? – a new adaptation of Jin Yong's classic novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes. The makers of Legend of the Heroes have not only adapted the main sprawling plot of the thousand-page novel, but also spins off into four prequel series that feature the origin stories (not in the original novel) of the key supporting characters and villains of the book into something truly epic in scope, a sprawling saga of revenge and tragic love stories. It was directed by Yang Lei, who directed the Chinese adaptation of The Three-Body Problem. Wuxia is really the Chinese superhero tradition, and this series treats it accordingly – the martial artists have superpowers and are not afraid of devastating each other and the surrounding real estate.

When the official English translation of Jin Yong's The Legend of the Condor Heroes novels was finally announced and hyped as the Chinese answer to "Lord of the Rings," the comparison sounded a bit cheap. Still, The Legend of Heroes TV series and its prequels and tie-in shows finally show the scope that justifies the comparison to Tolkien's fantasy epic. The prequel series does something new, which is introduce a whole new arc to the story that ties directly into the main novel's plot and even introduces new dimensions to the supporting characters and how they began in the years before Legend of the Condor Heroes' main heroes Guo Jing and Huang Rong were born.

You might ask if there's any point in yet another adaptation of the Jin Yong novel, which is probably the most frequently adapted Chinese novel of all time, let alone wuxia, going all the way back to the Shaw Brothers movie trilogy of the 1970s The Brave Archer, the classic 1980s Hong Kong TVB series adaptation that ran for 50 episodes, a 1997 Mainland Chinese TV series, a 2003 Chinese series and Tsui Hark's big budget blockbuster movie just this year. The Legend of Heroes, alternate title Jin Yong Universe, was made to commemorate the late author's 100th birthday tries something different that sets it apart from the increasingly cheesy and generic romance-driven wuxia series, all of which were heavily influenced and inspired by Jin Yong's novels and Tsui Hark's directorial style in the first place.

On top of the main novel, The Legend of Heroes' four prequel series – Eastern Heretic and Western Venom, Southern Emperor and Northern Beggar, Duel at Mount Hua: The Five Masters aka The Five, and Nine Yin True Sutra – form a surprising deconstruction of the wuxia genre and its ethos and turns the villains and supporting characters into tragic antiheroes before they evolved into the villains and helpers in the main story. The prequel miniseries, which total 30 episodes before the 30-episode main series, are effectively the Batman Begins of the Jin Yong wuxia universe. They're not perfect, falling prey to the low budgets of television and production limitations, and still prone to familiar tropes of the genre and TV stylings. Still, there's more grit and ambition in them than in the other wuxia series currently on TV.

The Legend of Heroes wuxia saga is streaming across multiple platforms, including viki, wetv and the Tencent's official YouTube channels. We'll be covering each of the prequel series.

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