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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jian" data-source="post: 9500784" data-attributes="member: 78087">Wuxia is also much more mainstream these days, partly because of all the tropes from CTHD (and The Matrix) which are all over more mainstream films and media, but also because of all the Chinese and Taiwanese TV dramas and films (and the books they’re based on) being a mere Netflix search away. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untamed_(TV_series)" target="_blank">The Untamed</a>, Eternal Love, Ashes of Love, and Handsome Siblings are all good examples.(Now you could argue that many of these series are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianxia" target="_blank">xianxia</a> (“immortal heroes” - similar to wuxia but with more supernatural or magical elements, and with a significant focus on cultivating your qi (inner power) to gain supernatural abilities or even achieve immortality - this is why xianxia media, especially Chinese comics (manhua) and online fiction, tend to be called “cultivation fantasy”) than wuxia. And I won’t disagree, but there’s a lot of overlap, especially in the complex personal relationships department.)There are also Korean and Japanese wuxia works, especially the former. There’s a huge body of Korean novels and webcomics devoted to wuxia (“murim*”) stories, which generally use Medieval China That Never Was as a setting but with Korean names and tropes. The most commonly used sects in murim are Mount Hua (a righteous sect of swordsmen) and the Heavenly Demon Cult (bad guys, basically the Zhentarim or similar gangster cultists; not much like the guys from Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre). I personally recommend the following:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I’m a Martial Arts Villainess but I’m the Strongest**</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Return of the Blossoming Blade</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Infinite Levelling Murim</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Murim Login**</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Best Teacher Baek</li> </ul>*This is the Korean pronunciation of the characters for wulin (“world of martial arts”) rather than wuxia (“muhak”), but it is the more common name for Korean wuxia stories.**Yes, these use tropes from other genres such as “reborn as the villainess” (like Bakarina) and “VR login into a fantasy world” (like SAO). There’s a lot of cross-pollination from different genres in Korean media.</blockquote>

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