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To see an example scene, please refer to the second post in this series, The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Fighting.

The Legendary Couple is Tony Wong’s version of the second novel, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ. Even though it’s the second novel, Tony Wong adapted this novel before he adapted the first novel.

Art

The style of The Legendary Couple, unsurprisingly, has a lot in common with Tony Wong’s Eagle-Shooting Heroes, but is less spectacular than the latter. The fights in The Legendary Couple are simpler and shorter—yet they are more confusing. There is less contrast to help readers quickly distinguish the various elements. That’s a pity, because I generally find the fights in Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ to be more engaging than the fights in Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn.

Sure, there are lots of swirls—but they are not as pretty as the ones in Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are also visual metaphors, but they are not as abundant or exciting as the visual metaphors in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are diagonals and slanted views, but not nearly as much as in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are also some sweeping vistas … but they are not as plentiful as in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes.

Almost everything in this manhua seems to happen at sunset or in the early evening. That’s rather appropriate. More than the other two parts of the trilogy, the second part is about things falling apart. Song China is collapsing under the weight of Mongol invasion. The main characters’ personal lives are constantly tottering on the brink of collapse, more so than in the other parts of the trilogy. The sunset and evening colors do help pull out the angst and melancholy.

Something that really comes through in this adaptation is how well Tony Wong can express characters through art. Comparing this with The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I don’t think the characters are actually drawn better in The Legendary Couple … but because the other elements of the art draw less attention, there is much more focus on the characters. Their movements are lively, but most importantly, the drawings clearly expose the characters’ feelings.

What Tony Wong really does better in The Legendary Couple than in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is hitting the high notes of the drama through art.

I particularly like the collages Tony Wong draws when characters are remembering earlier events.

And there are various visual gems throughout the manhua—for example, this use of color vs. black and white to show how these two characters only see each other and are unaware of their surroundings.

And this is one of my favourite pages in the entire manhua because it really lets the reader put the scene together—but first, this page needs some labels.

This page so perfectly captures the tension of this moment. The captive’s mother and sweethearts want to rescue her … but they also do not want her to get hurt, which is why they are staring at the Tibetans instead of attacking them. The Tibetans know that they are being stared at, but are confident that they have the upper hand. Everybody is too preoccupied to notice the people in the top-left corner of the page … but the wildcard characters are watching everything, unsure of what they want. Suffice to say, when the tension reaches a breaking point and the weapons come out, it’s the wildcard characters who decide the outcome.

While I prefer the art of Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes for its sheer majestic sweep, I have to admit that the art in The Legendary Couple does a better job of supporting the story itself.

Adaptation

Whereas I was not able to quite lose myself to the story again in Tony Wong’s Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I did get involved in the story of Legendary Couple. It’s still a streamlined version, with some parts of the story changed and many bits removed. Some of the changes bother me (I cannot describe them without spoiling), but most of my quibbles are minor. Overall The Legendary Couple is a more complete version of second novel than Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is of the first novel. And I think that makes the difference.

It’s still not nearly as rich an experience as reading the original novel. The details left out in The Legendary Couple often come at the cost of the pathos and the depth of the characters. This adaptation is generally quite good at conveying the melodrama itself, but it is often not so good at conveying the other aspects of the story. The soft moments do not feel so soft, the quiet sad moments do not seem so quiet and sad, and in the joyful moments the joy feels a little muted. To be fair, the silly moments—at least the silly moments which were not cut out—are still quite silly in this adaptation. I think it is not the lack of drama which makes this adaptation feel a little thin—it’s the lack of the things which nuance the drama. Nonetheless, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is such a passionate novel that even a watered-down version of it can still hold its own against, say, 70s shoujo manga.

Availability in English

ComicsOne published 7 volumes of The Legendary Couple in English. They are now out of print, but apparently not hard to acquire. I do not know how the ComicsOne edition corresponds to the Hong Kong or Taiwan editions, so I am not sure how far into the manhua it goes. Based on the covers, the ComicsOne edition seems to cut off somewhere in the Hong Qigong/Ouyang Feng arc. There is another manhua adapted from Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ which has been fully published in English—not to mention that the 1983 live-action drama, the 2006 live-action drama, and the anime are all available with English subtitles—so it is certainly possible to continue the story in English after the ComicsOne edition cuts off.

Conclusion

If you want a good comic to read, I would definitely recommend The Legendary Couple over Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. This manhua can definitely stand on its own, whereas I am not sure Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes would work for anybody who was not already familiar with the story.

Yet, I personally prefer Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. While The Legendary Couple is much better at capturing the spirit of the original and certainly has its moments, I feel that I did not get much from The Legendary Couple which I could not get from Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ—and the novel Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ has much more to offer. Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, in spite of its flaws, stretched my imagination. The Legendary Couple, for the most part, did not.

Discussion Question:

Which would you rather read, Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes or The Legendary Couple?

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Sara K. has been travelling for the past few days (these blog posts are canned), so she has not been terribly responsive. She is now back in Taoyuan county, and should finally be replying to whatever comments people left. Currently, she is reading Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (the novel, not the manhua, which also happened to be drawn by Tony Wong).

This is part three in a seven part series about the Condor Trilogy and its manhua adaptations.

Example Scene (be sure to click on the pictures for a bigger size!)

The theme of this round of the contest Huang Yaoshi is hosting between Ouyang Ke and Guo Jing is music, and – oh, who cares? I didn’t pick this scene because of the plot. I picked this scene because it’s pretty.

I really like the presence of swirling things in this manhua. The music coming from Huang Yaoshi’s flute is no exception.

This manhua is occasionally punctuated with a page which is meant to pop. The “pop” pages usually are done in pastel, and consist of a single panel. However, even though the left page is the “pop” page, my favorite panel here Guo Jing on the right, as he stops worrying about the fact that he knows squat about music and just listens. It helps that there is yellow fog/music/something swirling around him in that panel.

One of the things that helps keep the action clear is the alternation of panels showing close-ups of the characters faces and panels showing the action.

Yes! I love the copious use of visual metaphors to represent the action! Here, the sea represents the music. And notice how the orange sound waves contrast with the blue sea waves. The blue-orange color theme continues for the rest of the scene.

Look at the bottom-left panel. Not only has the sea metaphor been expanded to include a whale, fish, and dragons, but the way Huang Rong’s face pops in close up and at an angle makes this panel perfect. Her face connects the turbulence of the sea and Guo Jing’s tranquility.

Notice how in the top-right panel, the sharp-pointed, orange, concave diamond Guo Jing is inside contrasts with the blue sea swirling around it. Guo Jing’s extended arms reinforce the pointy nature of the diamond, while the mer-people’s curved tails reinforce the wavy nature of the sea. It’s the multiple layers of visual contrast which makes that panel so dynamic—of course, it’s also pretty.

There are many things I can say of the page where Huang Yaoshi is dancing and playing the flute around the seated Guo Jing, but I’ll stick to the colors. Notice that Guo Jing is blue, which is the opposite color of the orange swirls around him—maximum contrast. Huang Yaoshi, of course, is green, which does not constrast quite so much with either blue or orange, so, colorwise, he forms a soft border. And to reinforce the theme of the blue/orange contrast, in the background there is a blue/orange yin-yang.

By now, you should appreciate how wonderful the swirls, color contrasts, and visual metaphors are. And yes, Guo Jing wins this round.

About Tony Wong and his adaptation of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn

Tony Wong is called “the godfather of Hong Kong comics.” He has been publishing manhua since the age of 13, and has since become an institution of Hong Kong culture. More Jin Yong novels have been adapted by him than any other manhua artist.

This manhua, first published in 2007, is a relatively recent Tony Wong work, and he definitely had an army of assistants help him make this. That doesn’t matter. What matters is how good is it to read.

The Art:

Once in the while, I have the pleasure of reading a comic where the art is so good that, after finishing a volume, I am compelled to immediately go back through the pages so that my eyes can rest some more upon the pictures. This manhua is one of those pleasures.

I am impressed by the way that the art manages to be detailed and complex without looking too busy. I am not completely sure how Tony Wong pulls it off, but I do have some ideas. First of all, this comic is in color. Tony Wong uses colors to increase the contrast between different things, which increases the level of detail each panel can sustain without losing the reader. Look at this page (and click on the picture to see it in full size!).

In this page, the main color theme is green against red-orange, two colors with a high contrast. This helps my eyes figure out quickly where one object begins and another one ends. While I didn’t notice it while casually reading the comic, looking through the pages again, I see than most scenes have 2-3 key colors which form a theme, which not only helps distinguish things inside a given scene, but also helps set that scene apart from the scenes with different color themes.

Especially impressive are the fight scenes, which in spite of being long and complicated, are lively, varied, and easy to follow. Looking at the extras sections, it becomes apparent that a lot of planning had to go into the battle scenes to get this result – there are illustrations of all Guo Jing performing all 18 of the “Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms,” as well as Huang Rong performing all of “Dog Staff Technique” moves. Taking the time to distinguish every individual move helps a lot to keep the fights interesting and readable.

In addtion, the high level of detail supports many wonderful flourishes in the linework. Swirls and circles are in abundance, like frosting on the cake.

I also love the constant use of visual metaphor. There are little visual metaphors throughout the comic, like pretty little flower petals casually left in the wake of a pacing young lover saying “He loves me… he loves me not…” For example, this:

Of course, the big, bold visual metaphors come out when it’s time to fight! It helps the reader keep track of what’s going on, and even better, it’s exciting.

The artwork alternates between regular coloring and pastel work. At first, this jolted me a little, but I got used to it quickly. The pastels generally come out to emphasize the expression of a certain character or to highlight a key moment in a battle. Usually there is only one pastel panel every few pages or so, or a full single or double page spread done in pastel. When the pastels are used differently, it feels even more special.

Seeing so many panels in pastel together really drives home that this is as special scene. And pastels are also warm, soft, and fluffy, like the characters’ feelings for each other.

Wait a minute, the pastels are stopping. Uh oh…

Yep, something is definitely wrong – in the story, I mean. There is nothing aesthetically wrong with the way Mu Nianci has poised a sword at her own throat.

While Tony Wong is not a master of showing subtle feelings or complex personalities through drawings, the characters all feel quite lively with a little spring in their step, keeping the energy level high.

And overall, the art evokes a greater-than-life grandeur. The frequent use of slanted angles makes the artwork more exciting, the costumes are often lovingly rendered, and palaces, islands, cliffs, and all sorts of grand sights make the world seem bigger than life.

The Adaptation

This is the whirlwind edition of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn. The story has been greatly streamlined. Many details, and even some story arcs, have been removed, pretty much leaving just the essence of the plot intact. This allows the story to move—and move it does. Sometimes things happened so quickly that I felt like I got whiplash. However, the fast pace keeps the energy high, and makes the comic all the more sweeping.

There is also a strong emphasis on the battles. Many battles run 20+ pages. This allows Tony Wong room to fully flesh out the battles with sophisticated yet easy to understand moves. The battles are a lot of fun to read.

However, because the story has been so stripped down and the battles are given so much room, the characters and the pathos are greatly dimished. While the characters do not ring false, with so many details removed, they feel much less rich than in the original novel. And while the characters are given many pages to punch each other, the scenes which are meant to punch the readers in the heart often only run 4-10 pages. This is not really enough pages to let the impact sink in, especially when the reader is quickly swept to the next event. I do not think this adaptation of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn will make anybody weep.

One exception is the backstory of Yi Deng, Yin Gu, and Wan Botong. This manhua actually goes into their history in greater detail than the original novel, and gives sufficient room for the reader to feel the tragedy. That said, this manhua still did not make my eyes wet with this story arc, whereas the original novel did.

In short, this adaptation fails to bring out the melancholy, tragedy, and passion of the original story … and succeeds at bringing out the fun and excitement with flying colors.

Availability

This manhua, to the best of my knowledge, is totally unavailable in English, or any language other than Chinese. That is not a big deal. If one already knows the story of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn, understanding the dialogue is unnecessary.

Conclusion

I knew these characters really well before I read this manhua. Therefore, even though many of the details that fleshed them out are missing, I still know those details, and filled them in as I read this manhua.

I only recommend this manhua for fans of Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn. Much of the story has been gutted—I think it would be very hard to get involved in characters’ struggles if this was a reader’s first contact with the story.

For me, this manhua truly was a pleasure to read. It made Jianghu look more lovely, spectacular, and wonderful than it ever looked inside my own head. It was like watching a friend coming to the ball looking like the most fabulous person in the world. Thank you, Tony Wong, for expanding my imagination.

Which brings me to the discussion question:

Which adaptations have you seen or read which, while clearly inferior to the original work, expanded your imagination or showed new sides of the story?

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Sara K. has previously written for Manga Bookshelf: Why You Should Read Evyione Part 1 & Part 2, Mary Stayed Out All Night, and The Geeky Heart of Taipei. Her personal blog is The Notes Which Do Not Fit, though there is not much about comics or East Asian pop culture over there. She is a vegan, atheist, Linux user, ace, loudmouth, and the person in the back of the classroom who is always clicking her pen.