Features

Let’s leave Hong Kong for a post to visit Singapore. A peek at this manhua was already presented in an earlier post: The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Fighting.

Singapore’s most commercially successful manhua artist by far is Wee Tian Beng. He was the first Sigaporean manhua artist to achieve success in the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. Wee Tian Beng is best known for The Celestial Zone and its sequels, but before Wee Tian Beng made The Celestial Zone, he adapted Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ, using ‘Return of the Condor Heroes’ as the official English title. In 1997 this adaptation won the “Asian Manga Prestigious Award” at the Asian Manga Summit held in Seoul, South Korea.

Art

Compared to Hong Kong manhua, Wee Tian Beng’s drawings look simple and cartoonish. I admit that at first that turned me off. However, as I read more and more, it dawned on me that the artwork is quite rich. Sure, the artwork does not have the intricate line-work characteristic of Hong Kong wuxia manhua … but there is such variety in the way Wee Tian Beng draws the story.

For example, there are many sequences showing a series of graceful motions by the characters. Indeed, I think Return of the Condor Heroes has the most graceful movement of all of the Condor Trilogy manhua – Hong Kong manhua tends to have characters move in a more BLAM! manner.

There are many panels which play with light and shadow, particularly shadow.

And of all of the Condor Trilogy manhua, Return of the Condor Heroes is the most cinematic. Often there will be a series of panels, or even pages, without dialogue or fancy composition—just simple still shots.

Speaking of cinema, Return of the Condor Heroes is the manhua which puts the most emphasis on natural scenery. Like westerns in the United States, wuxia movies and TV shows sometimes put a lot of emphasis on beautiful scenery. Something about human nature must make people enjoy watching fighters beat the living daylights out of each other in gorgeous settings. Heck, I first became interested in wuxia because it features people beating the living daylights out of each other while wearing beautiful clothes—I only came to appreciate other aspects (the story, for example) later.

NOTE: While all other manhua adaptations of the Condor Trilogy are read from right-to-left, Return of the Condor Heroes is read from left-to-right.

All of the Condor Trilogy manhua show some of the naturally beautiful settings. Even The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre occasionally has a nice page or two showing the lovely scenery. But Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes not only has many panels of lofty mountains, verdant forests, and scenic rivers, it also shows quite a bit of the wildlife too. While Tony Wong’s The Eagle Shooting Heroes is the adaptation to look to if you want luxurious palaces, Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes is definitely the scenic route.

Wee Tian Beng’s drawings also renders the characters in a more subtle manner than Tony Wong and Ma Wing-shing. For example, I really like the way that Wee Tian Beng draws Guo Xiang.

His drawings capture how she is curious, clever, mischievous, and naïve at the same time—in other words, how she is just like many other teenage girls.

While at first I did not care for the way he draws Xiaolongnü, his depiction of her grew on me.

Wee Tian Beng conveys how cold Xiaolongnü is while offering glimpses of the feelings she has deep down. That’s hard to pull off, and something that I do not think Tony Wong really succeeded at. While I haven’t seen any of the TV/film adaptations of the Condor Trilogy, I think that Xiaolongnü would be the most challenging role for an actor to play in the entire trilogy.

So, in spite of a bad first impression, the art definitely won me over.

Adaptation

Wee Tian Beng botched the depiction of Yang Guo’s childhood. He shows Yang Guo as a mischievous young boy—fair enough, Yang Guo is a mischievous boy. Yang Guo’s childish exploits are shown in a humorous light—fair enough, some of them are humorous. Wee Tian Beng also shows some of the bullying … but … but the bullying is also shown in a humorous light, which is definitely not how it reads in the original novel. Wee Tian Beng also fails to show the true extent of the bullying. And no where in the manhua is it shown, or even said, that Yang Guo was wandering around China, homeless, without any relatives or friends, surviving by any means necessary … when he was just eleven years old. Plotwise, is that detail important? No, not really. Is that detail important for Yang Guo’s character development. Oh hell yes it is.

The reader needs to feel Yang Guo’s pain to have the fullest experience of the story. As Todd Brown succinctly put it in his review of the 1983 TV series, Yang Guo “has been repeatedly abandoned and abused by the adults in his life, leaving him both desperate for approval and deeply distrustful.” While I do not enjoy reading about Yang Guo being bullied, abused, and neglected, it is a necessary foundation for everything that is done with Yang Guo’s character later. I love reading about teenage Yang Guo kicking everybody’s ass because I know how much he suffered as a boy. Without that suffering …. I care a lot less about Yang Guo.

Furthermore, Wee Tian Beng also messed up the scene which made me fall in love with Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ. Specifically, the first fight with Li Mochou in the Tomb of Living Death. I cannot get into details without spoilers, so let’s just say that I love the scene because it feels like it was ripped straight from a fairy tale, spiked with the kind of melodrama found in classic shoujo manga. First of all, Wee Tian Beng completely takes out the buildup to the fight. That is not horrible, but it does make things seem rather sudden. But—and this is what really bothers me—he also took the most dramatic, fairy-talish moment out. That just killed the scene for me.

So, between the way Yang Guo’s childhood was (not) shown and what it did to one of my favourite scenes, I was set to hate this adaptation.

Then, about a third of the way through, this manhua started being a lot more faithful to the novel. It started to include many of the things which The Legendary Couple left out, including some of the subtle little details. Of course, the subtler details matches the subtler art. And I found myself sucked back into the story again. I relived the experience of the novel, but I think even if I had not read the novel, this manhua would have still sucked me in.

For example, I think that this adaptation did another one of my favourite scenes—the trip Guo Jing and Yang Guo make to the Mongol camp—better than The Legendary Couple. Generally, I felt that The Legendary Couple gave the relationship between Guo Jing and Yang Guo short shrift, but because it glosses over it rather than actively butchers it, it did not bother me as much as what Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes did to the first fight in the Tomb of Living Death. Yet … this is one of those scenes where Yang Guo’s childhood suffering is very relevant. I love this scene because, in the novel, the suspense and the intensity made my heart leap into my throat. However, cutting back on Yang Guo’s childhood cuts the suspense and intensity of this scene, so while I appreciate Wee Tian Beng giving this scene a fuller treatment that Tony Wong, I cannot say “well done.”

Overall, this manhua is quite good at capturing the quiet melancholy of the story, as well has having the richest versions of the characters of any of the manhua reviewed thus far. And the melancholy is quite beautiful.

But.

While the story certainly has plenty of subtlety and quiet melancholy, some parts have all of the subtlely of a sword pierced through the chest (wrong novel, I know). While The Legendary Couple was not subtle, it could pierce. I don’t think Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes ever manages to be sufficiently sharp during those moments. Three examples:

Example 1: There is a scene where a father threatens to cut off his daughter’s arm. In The Legendary Couple, there is a full-page panel dedicated to this moment, highlighting the father’s intent and the daughter’s terror. In Wee Tian Being’s Return of the Condor Heroes, this moment is not shown as being particularly special. I actually like the way he draws the father’s calm resolve, however the daughter does not seem to be really terrified.

Example 2: (WARNING: if discussion of sexual assault triggers you, skip to Example 3) There is a rape scene. Here is what I was thinking when I read the rape scene in Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes:

“She looks so lovely and vulnerable … that’s a nice use of shadow … what a beautiful night, with the stars and the trees.”

This is what I was thinking when I read the rape scene in The Legendary Couple:

“No, not this scene again. Maybe I should skip it … [shudder] the clothes have come off … no! Stop! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! DO NOT DO IT!!!!!!!!!!”

I will let you draw your own conclusions about which manhua evoked a more appropriate response to the rape scene.

Example 3: At one point in the story, a character’s hair turns white in the course of a single night.

In The Legendary Couple, it looks like this.

This is the same moment in Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes.

Some people might prefer Wee Tian Beng’s quieter interpretation, but I think that if somebody has experienced something so horrible that his hair turns white in one night, exclamation points are called for. Generally, I feel that The Legendary Couple was much better at punching out the exclamation points.

Availability

Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes is the only manhua adaptation of the Condor Trilogy which has been completely published in English. The publisher claims to still have the English-language edition for sale, but I have not personally confirmed this.

To the best of my knowledge, all Chinese language editions, both simplified and traditional characters, are out of print, but I can testify that it is still fairly easy to get the Taiwanese (traditional characters) edition, at least in Taiwan.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think this manhua has more to offer than The Legendary Couple. I must find time to read The Celestial Zone some day. Yet I find The Legendary Couple flashing in my mind far more often than Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes. While it is less admirable, The Legendary Couple made a deeper impression on me.

Because of the problems with the first part of this manhua, I do not recommend making this one’s first contact with Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ.

What I highly recommend for lovers of Asian comics is reading the seven ComicsOne volumes of The Legendary Couple first, and then proceed to read this. That is a nearly ideal manhua experience—ComicsOne edition cuts off right around the point Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes starts being better than The Legendary Couple, and readers can experience both interpretations of the story.

Of course, if you can, you really should read the novel. While both of the manhua adaptations are fine, neither can match the experience of the original.

Discussion Question:

Which do you think you would prefer, The Legendary Couple or Return of the Condor Heroes?

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Sara K. loves dancing. She has taken ballet, swing, modern, jazz, Afro-Haitian, and noh dance classes. However, the dance of her dreams is tap dance. Of course, she thinks Swan is fantastic, and she also appreciates the way the characters in Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes look like they are dancing.

This is part four in a series of posts about the Condor Trilogy in Manhua. The previous posts are Introduction, Fighting, Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, and The Legendary Couple.

This manhua is by Ma Wing-shing, who is Hong Kong’s next most significant wuxia manhua artist after Tony Wong.

Whereas the other novels in the trilogy have been adapted multiple times into manhua, this is the only manhua adaptation of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì. Poor Zhang Wuji, nobody loves him. Well, maybe my friend loves him. She kept on asking me what I thought about him as I read the novel (“Isn’t he wonderful?” “Ummm, he’s still twelve years old” “Just wait until he becomes a man!”)

Speaking of Zhang Wuji and female attention, let’s check out his wedding.

Example Scene:

The young couple is getting married. And they love each other. They really do. This must be a happy scene where nothing goes wrong…

… aside from a Mongolian princess barging in.

The Mongolian princess asks the groom to jilt the bride. The groom says that if he did that, he would be a jerk.

The Mongolian princess seems to have something in her hand. Whatever it is, it makes the Chinese groom change his tune.

Hey, Chinese people bride, it’s time to PROTECT YOUR COUNTRY MAN FROM THE MONGOL INVASION PRINCESSS!

Go Chinese people bride, go!

*sigh* Bride, you’re not going to score any points if you beat up a helpless princess who … poisoned and kidnapped a bunch of the world’s most powerful martial artists … is the best schemer in the story … can get Zhang Wuji to crack a joke (before the Mongol princess showed up, I was under the impression that Zhang Wuji didn’t have a sense a humor) … okay, bride, if you take down the princess, you score ALL the points.

Given a choice between a Mongol princess who is trying to ruin his wedding and previously tried to kill him and his companions, and a woman that he loves and wants to marry, the groom is of course siding with the Mongol princess.

You know, I think most weddings would be improved if the bride and groom decided to break out into a kung-fu match in the midst of the ceremony. Too bad that this couple seems to be fighting for real.

Apparently the wedding is now messed up beyond all repair.

Game over. Mongol empire princess: 1; Chinese people bride: 0.

Adaptation

The manhua is paced very differently from the novel. Even though this manhua is 25 volumes long (Taiwan edition), the first 75% of the novel gets covered in the first 5 volumes, though some of the early scenes in the novel appear later in the manhua as flashbacks. Considering that the first half of the novel is about as brisk as rush hour traffic, this is not exactly a bad thing. Even so, the sheer speed did make me a little dizzy. The last three chapters of the novel, however, are covered in about 6 volumes, which allows much more room for nuance. While I will not say that the last three chapters are the best three chapters, the last fourth of the novel is certainly the best part, so I cannot exactly argue with this either.

However, while the pacing of the manhua is completely different from the novel, the plot is pretty much the same. Like every other adaptation of the Condor Trilogy, some details are left out. Yes, some of the moments which are missing are my personal favorites, but that’s always going to happen and I can always re-read the novels if I so wish.

Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì has less humor than the other parts of the trilogy, but whatever humor the story has, this manhua manages to kill it. For example, the socks scene is utterly serious—and I don’t mean that it is done deadpan style. It simply is not funny in the manhua. The only humor in this manhua is unintentional—such as the wedding scene described above (to be fair, I thought the wedding scene was quite funny in the original novel too, and I do not think that was Jin Yong’s intent).

The manhua is based on the second edition of the novel and has the second-edition ending (different editions have different endings). I also happened to read the second edition of the novel. My first reaction to the ending of the novel was “what the [expletive]!” and then I chose to be amused. Ma Wing-shing has a very different take on the second-edition ending—he presents it as being creepy and scary. (Which just goes to show how open-ended the second edition ending is.) Whereas I took the most light-hearted interpretation possible, Ma Wing-shing took the darkest interpretation possible. The line between comedy and tragedy can be quite fine.

Generally, out of all of the Condor Trilogy manhua, this was the hardest one for me to get involved in the story. There were points when I got involved, but it felt like I was recalling how a given scene made me feel in the original novel rather than re-experiencing the scene anew. I think this is mainly an art issue, because aside from the pacing, timing, and some simplifications, the dialogue and the plot of the manhua are not that different from the novel.

Artwork

Ma has a more gritty-realistic style than Tony Wong. Though he can use an abundance of flourishes when he wishes, they do not have the eye-candy feel of Tony Wong’s visual flourishes. While the characters in Tony Wong’s manhua often seem to have a light spring to their steps, Ma’s characters move in a more grounded manner. Overall, where Tony Wong’s art expresses exuberance, Ma’s art expresses restraint—a restraint which sometimes bursts into an explosion of glory. And to be honest, I have trouble imagining a Tong Wong adaptation of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì. While Tony Wong expresses excitement—whether of joy or angst—quite well, he is not so adept at expressing solemn, heavy feelings. Thus, I feel that the right artists were chosen for the right adaptations.

Because the manhua tries to cover the first three-fourths of the novel so quickly, the art is in rapid plot-exposition mode—which means there are a lot of talking heads. In the hands of an artist who is great at drawing talking heads, that would be sweet. Ma Wing-shing is not that kind of artist. Not only do the characters constantly seem to be wearing the same stoic expression, but they often look just like each other. I think that depicting the characters as constantly having a stoic expression is an interesting way to interpret Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì—but when you’re mostly seeing talking heads, it looks really monotonous.

However, while Ma is not good at expressing character through face or body, he can express the character’s inner life through composition, color, and motion.

For example, you can tell by the blues, the rain, the way the figure’s back is turned as his body fades into the storm, that this a sad, solemn moment.

But to express things through composition and color, one needs a high-page-to-plot ratio. Such a ratio does not exist in the first half in the manhua. There were flashes of Ma’s visual genius, even in the first half, but they were quickly buried in a sea of talking heads.

But when the page-to-plot ratio goes up? Ma demonstrates why he is one of Hong Kong’s most celebrated manhua artists. The last 8 or so volumes are GORGEOUS. When I say they are gorgeous, I mean they are full of pages like this (click to see them in larger size):

And this:

And this:

I am tempted to say that if Ma had expanded this story over more pages, the entire manhua could have been visually amazing. But I suspect Ma needed to be inspired to show his true capabilities, and that the first part of the story did not inspire him.

Please forgive my poor digital camera – it does not do the artwork justice.

More Thoughts on the Adaptation

This is my least favourite of the manhua adaptations of the Condor Trilogy.

The last fourth of the original novel kept my jaw fixed in a state of drop until it was over. When the manhua adaptation made my jaw drop, it was always because the art was stunning, not because the story swept me up again.

Perhaps the art and the story failed to connect because there was no focus. I would have been happy to read a manhua adaptation of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì which threw the story to hell and focused on fantastic fight scenes—and I think Ma could have delivered such a version. I might also enjoy a manhua adaptation which focuses on the romance—as one can probably tell by my commentary on the wedding scene, I would have a lot of fun with that version.

The manhua adaptation I would really like to see is one which delved into the commentary on society and politics. Hong Kong wuxia manhua uses plenty of visual metaphors and flourishes to flesh out the battles. Why not use those visual metaphors and flourishes to flesh out the socio-political allegory? Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì would be the perfect story for this treatment. The title literally means “Relying on Heaven to Kill the Dragon Tale” and is usually interpreted to mean that when the emperor (dragon) is bad, the people who support justice (heaven) will remove him. And there are two blades—the Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre—which carry this metaphor throughout the story. Why not build on that? I think sequential art is the perfect medium for examining this side of the story. Alas, this manhua does not try to go there and mostly takes the story at face value.

And I think that might be the thing. This adaptation sticks too close to the surface. It is reasonably faithful to the letter of the story—more so than the Tony Wong adaptations. But it does not try to dig into any aspect of the story—not the battles, not the romance, not the camaraderie, not the social commentary, not the tragedy, and so forth. I already know the story, so I am not terribly interested in a shallow overview.

Availability in English

11 volumes of this manhua were published in English by ComicOne. They are out of print, and seem a little harder/more expensive to get than The Legendary Couple, but are apparently not too difficult to acquire. I do not know how the ComicOne volumes correspond to the Taiwan edition. Having only read the Taiwan edition, I also cannot comment on the translation.

To continue the story in English, Chu Yuan’s The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre Part 1 & 2 (1978), The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (1986), and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (2009) are all available on DVD with English subtitles.

Conclusion

I think the only people who should read the ComicOne edition are people who really want to experience the story of Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì in a printed medium and cannot read the novel. It is actually not a terrible adaptation, and can give one a sense of the story, even though it cannot replace the experience of reading the novel.

Everyone else—Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì fans, Ma Wing-shing fans, and so forth, should go straight to one of the Chinese-language editions, regardless of one’s Chinese reading ability or lack thereof. If one wishes to invest money in this manhua, there is no reason to deny oneself the splendor of the late volumes.

Speaking of gorgeous art, the question is:

Whose art style do you prefer, Tony Wong’s or Ma Wing-shing’s?

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Sara K. has tried martial arts herself. She has taken kickboxing and Tai Chi (Chen style) classes, and has gone up to green belt in Tae Kwon Do. She is slow and her arms are weak. She is flexible, has a good sense of balance, and has powerful legs. If she found herself in hand-to-hand combat, she would use her arms mostly for defense and use her legs mostly for offense. Her bones have an unusual structure, which means that certain arm twists which work on most people do not work on her (and would offer her an excellent opportunity to send her opponent a surprise elbow jab), however her unusual bone structure also makes her more prone to injuries in general. If she were to study a new martial art, she would choose archery.

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.

The Condor Trilogy is considered a martial arts epic because there is a heck of a lot of martial arts. Without understanding how martial arts work in wuxia, much of the story will fly over one’s head. I had to figure it out the hard way—reading a lot. I am writing this post so that others will not have to figure it out the hard way.

I am going to use one of my favorite fights—the big battle a the Quanzhen monastery as depicted in both Wee Tian Beng’s Return of the Condor Heroes and Tony Wong’s The Legendary Couple—as my example.

Prelude

So, at the Quanzhen monastery, a delegation of Mongols/Tibetans are talking with the Daoist monks, asking them to accept the authority of the Mongol Empire. The Quanzhen monks want to remain loyal to Song China … but they also want to survive, and the Mongols have a “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” attitude.

Then a certain woman enters the monastery.

suddenly all of the attention is on her. The Quanzhen monks suspect she has not come with good intentions.

The Quanzhen sect specializes in the art of the sword, and all of the monks are at least above-average fighters. And this woman is alone. Yet she is the one who is totally calm, while the Quanzhen monks panic.

Now that I have your attention, let’s review some nuts and bolts:

Teacher-Student Relationships

Almost all martial arts fighters have a shifu, which literally means “teacher-father.” Even female masters are referred to as shifu—a shimu is one’s shifu’s wife (I admit, I do not know what one would call one’s shifu’s husband). Shifu are responsible for the martial arts education of their apprentices (Mandarin: tuer). However, the relationship is much more than that. Accepting somebody as a shifu/apprentice is as serious a matter as adoption, and the bond between shifu and apprentice is considering as strong as parent and child. Also important are the relationships between shijiemei (teacher-sisters) and shixiongdi (teacher-brothers). A shijie/shige/shimei/shidi is somebody who has the same shifu as you, and these relationships also carry the same weight as the relationship between blood siblings. And these are the foundations for a whole set of relationships. For example, a shishu would be one’s shifu’s shimei/shidi, and a shibo would be one’s shifu’s shijie/shige, and a shizufu would the shifu of one’s shifu. Much drama is squeezed from all of these relationships.

There are certain social rules for dealing with these relationships. For example, apprentices are supposed to obey their shifu as long as their shifu is not telling them to do something unethical. Apprentices also need their shifu’s permission to make many major decisions, such as marriage. It is okay for shijiemei and shixiondi to marry each other—with the shifu’s permission of course. It is NOT OKAY for shifu to have romantic/sexual relationships with their apprentices. Of course, Ouyang Ke has sex with his apprentices anyway, but he’s a villain, and villains do things which are not okay. Learning martial arts from somebody who is not one’s shifu is alright, though a relationship with an outside teacher/student does not carry as much weight as the relationship with one’s own shifu/apprentice(s). Having more than one set of shifu is not okay, though there is a villain who has multiple sets of shifu anyway.

If you notice an elephant in this room, and feel compelled to discuss it, please use spoiler warnings.

Sometimes, these shifu/apprentice relationships form the foundation of a larger group. Since martial arts and religion are intertwined, many martial arts groups are Daoist or Buddhist sects, in which the monks/nuns are all “descended” from a single shifu or group of shifu. For example, the Quanzhen sect, featured in this battle, was founded by Wang Chongyang, who was considered the greatest martial artist of his time. There are also groups “descended” from a single shifu or group of shifu that are secular. And of course, these groups have complicated relationships with each other.

Back to the Battle

Now Xiaolongnü gets down to business – which, apparently, is to kill all of the Quanzhen monks.

And considering that she is fighting one against many, she’s doing a pretty well. How does she do it?

She knows the “Sword Technique of the Jade Maiden,” which was developed specifically to counter the Quanzhen fighting style. That alone would mean that any individual Quanzhen monk fighting her would be in trouble, but it’s not enough to put an entire group of Quanzhen monks in trouble.

She knows the Quanzhen fighting style too—and it so happens that when one person is using the Jade Maiden technique, and another person is using the Quanzhen technique, and the two are in harmony with each other, they can provide each other perfect protection—in other words, they are invincible.

But wait a minute—Xiaolongnü is all alone! How can she be simultaneously using the Jade Maiden and Quanzhen techniques? First of all, notice that she has two swords. And just before this battle, she learned the technique of “Two Fists Fighting Each Other”—in other words, each of her arms can act as independent agents. One arm represents herself and uses the Jade Maiden technique, and another arm represents somebody else and uses the Quanzhen technique. Oh snaps.

And that is one the things I love about this battle. It takes a three techniques which had been gradually introduced during the course of the story—Quanzhen, Jade Maiden, and Two Fists Fighting Each Other—and combines them. And with these three combined techniques, Xiaolongnü has reached a new level of badass. As soon as I realized these three techniques could be combined this way, I really wanted to see the full extent of what Xiaolongnü could do with this, and this is the battle where she shows it.

Which brings us to the next topic.

Fighting Techniques

Of course there are many weapons—bows and arrows, swords, clubs, fists, feet, as well as more unusual weapons such as jujube seeds. For example, Xiaolongnü can attack people with the sashes of her sleeves (and I claim—with my tongue bulging out of my cheek—that this is the main reason why Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is so popular). But there is a lot more to these techniques than the choice of weapon.

Fighting techniques often come with a set of words, or mnemonics, to help people execute them properly. One can of course know the words without knowing the moves, which is useless in a fight. What is more interesting is that sometimes, if one knows the moves but does not know the words, the technique might still be useless in a fight.

In order to become a great martial arts fighter, one must have a powerful neigong. “Neigong” means something like “inner force.” Without a powerful neigong, it is not possible to execute the really powerful fighting techniques. Thus, a hero-in-training’s first order of business is building up one’s neigong. A common way to build one’s neigong is to sleep in uncomfortable places—for example, on top of a rock on a snowy mountain. Neigong can sometimes be used directly in a fight—for example, shoving one’s neigong into somebody else can hurt them—but neigong is more often transferred between people for healing purposes. Since building neigong is a life-long endeavor, older fighters tend to have more powerful neigong, which is one reason why older martial artists are considered more dangerous than younger martial artists. However, Xiaolongnü has built up an unusually powerful neigong for somebody her age. Oh snaps.

In addition to neigong, there is qinggong—speed and lightness. It basically grants martial artists the ability to defy gravity. Since actors are really bad at qinggong, they need wires to fake it. But manhua characters have excellent qinggong, so no wirework is required. And the most powerful qinggong in the martial arts world happens to be the qinggong practiced by Xiaolongnü’s sect. Oh snaps.

Though acupuncture points are not being used in this battle, they are significant throughout the Condor Trilogy. Acupuncture points can be used in various ways in both fighting and healing, but the most common usage is to hit people’s acupuncture points in order to partially or completely immobilize them. Sometimes acupuncture points will re-open on their own after a while without intervention. Sometimes another character will re-open the acupuncture points of the afflicted. There are a few—very few characters—who can re-open their own acupuncture points without having to wait for the effects to wear off. Xiaolongnü is not one of those characters—if she were, the plot would have gone in a different direction, and this battle would not be happening.

There are two main ways techniques are transmitted, though sometimes they can be transferred by more unusual means. The most obvious way is from teacher to student, whether they are shifu/apprentice or not. The other way is by studying scriptures which describe various fighting/healing techniques—and much of the plot of the Condor Trilogy consists of searching and fighting over these scriptures. Of course, it is not enough to have the scripture. Training takes time, and somebody without a basic martial arts education would not be able to make use of the scripture at all. One of these scriptures, the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra, describes the Jade Maiden Sword Technique that Xiaolongnü is using. Of course, out of all the scriptures, the most coveted is the Nine Yin Manual, which describes the most powerful martial arts techniques in the world. Anyone who has mastered the techniques of the Nine Yin Manual can pretty much beat anybody who has not. The Quanzhen monks do not know any of the techniques of the Nine Yin Manual, but Xiaolongnü has a copy, and she’s had over a year to practice the techniques. Oh snaps.

Again, the Battle

There is an image in this battle so wonderful it was used as the illustration for this chapter in the original novel.

This is yet another technique introduced earlier in the story—the “Palm of Infinity Web.” Previously, it had only been shown as a training technique—a character has to use the Palm of Infinity Web to keep a flock of magpies in place in order to improve his qinggong. Before this battle, I hadn’t realized that it could be used in a fight. But here it is—except, instead of flock magpies, it’s a flock of swords. That. Is. Cool.

That’s a basic rundown of the mechanics of the battle, and while watching a woman mow down a bunch of men using cool sword work is fun in its own right, what makes this battle (and all of the memorable battles) really moving is what is going on with the characters. While I used pictures from Wee Tian Beng’s manhua for the this part of this post, for the next part I’m going to use pictures from Tony Wong’s manhua.

The Character Side

So, why is Xiaolongnü trying to kill all of the Quanzhen monks? She says that she is there for revenge. But the problem with this explanation is that she has had opportunities before to get revenge for all of the bad things the Quanzhen sect has done, and she never took advantage of any of them. She has even said that revenge is pointless because it cannot undo the bad things which have been done. So why is now different?

Different readers may interpret this differently, but I think Xiaolongnü is fighting the Quanzhen sect because she does not know what to do. The past few months of her life have been rather awful—more awful than anything she has experienced before. And Xiaolongnü currently does not have a social network—no friends or family—and there are reasons why she will not contact any of the remaining members of her sect. That is one of the things which makes this battle so exciting. Not only is Xiaolongnü more potent than ever before, she is also psychologically less stable than ever before.

So she falls back on what she knows—martial arts—and practicing martial arts, to a large extent, means fighting people. Given that the Quanzhen sect is partially responsible for the awfulness in her life, they are the obvious target of her aggression. And as a reader, I find it satisfying to see the Quanzhen sect finally getting some payback for the uncool things they have done.

She really is targeting the Quanzhen sect rather than looking for any suitable opponent, because she tells the Mongols/Tibetans that she is not interested in fighting them. Unfortunately, the Tibetans are interested in fighting her.

Fortunately, Xiaolongnü is currently invincible.

And in the course of the battle, they manage to disturb the Quanzhen elders. They had secluded themselves so they could learn how to counter Xiaolongnü; they knew she was really dangerous and figured it was only a matter of time before she attacked. Little did they know that she would attack so soon. They also see the Mongols/Tibetans, who are also bad news. Then they notice that Xiaolongnü and the Tibetans are fighting each other, which is not such bad news.

Then Xiaolongnü thinks about a certain somebody and gets distracted. She had resolved never to see this special person ever again, but in the midst of battle, she suddenly realizes that she wants to see this person again, at least once, before she dies. Ironically, while her life is not at risk as she perfectly executes the Jade Maiden / Quanzhen sword techniques, thinking about how much she wants to live makes her stop, putting her life in danger. This, to me, is more evidence that she is fighting because she lost herself, not because she wants to punish the Quanzhen monks. If she were hellbent on revenge, I do not think she would be distracted so easily.

A Tibetan takes advantage of this opportunity to strike her.

Then one of the Quanzhen monks sacrifices himself to protect Xiaolongnü. Why? Hasn’t she been trying to kill them? Let’s just say that he is obsessed with Xiaolongnü and is personally responsible for some of the awfulness in her life.

He asks her if she can forgive him. She answers “You ruined my life, how can I forgive you?” And she pulls out her sword. Ouch.

A Quanzhen elder aims for a Tibetan … but the Tibetan pulls himself out of the way, and puts Xiaolongnü in the way. OUCH OUCH OUCH!

So, one of the world’s more powerful martial artists has just pulverized, albeit unintentionally, Xiaolongnü’s guts. I’ll stop here, because even somebody as powerful as Xiaolongnü cannot continue to fight in this condition.

The consequences of Xiaolongnü getting trashed like this are major. In the original novel, what happens after this battle is one of most heartbreaking scenes in the entire trilogy (alas, neither of the manhua adaptations get that scene right).

The Manhua

Often the manhua artists draw fantastic elements—such as dragons—in the midst of battles. Rest assured, there are no actual dragons in the Condor Trilogy. Those are all visual metaphors. The visual metaphors help keep track of which techniques are being used, since the same technique will probably have the same visual metaphor associated with it when it is performed. They should not be taken literally. Reading a bit of the manhua should be enough to get a hang of what is metaphor and what is literally happening. The fantastic elements are beautiful and make the artwork that much more wonderful.

I think the battles are one aspect of the story which I prefer experiencing through manhua over prose. Sure, I thought the battle at the Quanzhen monastery was superb when I read it in the novel, but having to keep track of the techniques and visually map it out in my head is work. Following the fights is much easier in the manhua where it is all laid out for the reader, with all of the techniques conveniently labeled. And the manhua artists make the battles look far more fantastic than what I see in my head as I read the novels. That is why they are professional visual artists, and I am not.

Hopefully, this can make readers’ first contact with wuxia manhua more enjoyable—and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Speaking of questions, I have some discussion questions for you:

How is the battle system in the Condor Trilogy / wuxia like the battle systems used in manga, particularly, but not exclusively, shonen manga? How is it different?

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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 has been studying Chinese since the fall of 2009, and is dangerously close to becoming a wuxia fan.