Michael Tree
First Post
I've been on a bit of a Wuxia and samurai movie kick recently. It occurred to me that I don't know of a single novel that's based in these genres. Are there any?
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Wuxia novels?
- Thread starter Michael Tree
- Start date
CCamfield
First Post
Wuxia: Yes, but not easily available in English, so far as I know.
One of the prolific Chinese authors has the name in English of "Louis Cha". There is a multi-volume translation of his book "The Deer and the Cauldron" but when I finallyy tracked this down, I found it to be pretty much a reversal of the wuxia traditions. Its hero is a young anti-hero with basically no morals that I eventually just became totally fed up with. I'd LOVE to find one of his straightforward wuxia novels in English, but I don't know if any have been translated.
edit: Wikipedia says some have been:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinyong
Now, samurai stuff. There I can give you a recommendation. I don't know if you've seen the Samurai Trilogy that Mifune starred in? That was taken from a long serialized novel called "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I also have a translation of "The Heike Story" which was pretty good too.
One of the prolific Chinese authors has the name in English of "Louis Cha". There is a multi-volume translation of his book "The Deer and the Cauldron" but when I finallyy tracked this down, I found it to be pretty much a reversal of the wuxia traditions. Its hero is a young anti-hero with basically no morals that I eventually just became totally fed up with. I'd LOVE to find one of his straightforward wuxia novels in English, but I don't know if any have been translated.
edit: Wikipedia says some have been:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinyong
Now, samurai stuff. There I can give you a recommendation. I don't know if you've seen the Samurai Trilogy that Mifune starred in? That was taken from a long serialized novel called "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I also have a translation of "The Heike Story" which was pretty good too.
Olive
Explorer
http://wuxiapedia.com/
This has some translations. Wuxia was a novel-based genre for many many years before it was a film-based genre.
This has some translations. Wuxia was a novel-based genre for many many years before it was a film-based genre.
horacethegrey
First Post
Personally I've not read any Wuxia novels, but I can give you some obvious examples.
The aformentioned Louis Cha (aka Jinyong) is also the author The Condor Trilogy. They're probably the most popular wuxia stories ever in Asia and have been adapted numerous times as TV series and even anime. They are:
The Legend of the Condor Heroes 射鵰英雄傳 (1957)
The Return of the Condor Heroes 神鵰俠侶 (1959)
The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber 倚天屠龍記 (1961)
Another great example is Crane Iron Pentalogy by Wang Dulu. But why this particular series you may ask? Well, the fourth book in the cycle is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which as everyone knows was adapted for the screen by Ang Lee in 2000 and became a huge hit. Unfortunately none of the books are available in English, and I don't know if anyone has taken the time to translate them online. The books in the Pentalogy are:
Crane Frightens Kunlun He Jing Kunlun 鹤惊昆仑
Treasured Sword, Golden Hairpin Baojian Jinchai 宝剑金钗
Sword Force, Pearl Shine Jian Qi Zhu Guang 剑气珠光
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Wo Hu Cang Long 卧虎藏龙
Iron Knight, Silver Vase Tieji Yinping 铁骑银瓶
As for novels about the Samurai, I'll second CCamfield's recommendation of the Musashi books. They may be a bit dated but they're still enjoyable nonetheless. But one story I think that deserves to be mentioned is Lone Wolf and Cub. Even though it is a manga series rather than a novel, it's still one of the best written series about feudal Japan ever published. Seek it out if you can, all 28 volumes are available in English from Dark Horse Comics.
The aformentioned Louis Cha (aka Jinyong) is also the author The Condor Trilogy. They're probably the most popular wuxia stories ever in Asia and have been adapted numerous times as TV series and even anime. They are:
The Legend of the Condor Heroes 射鵰英雄傳 (1957)
The Return of the Condor Heroes 神鵰俠侶 (1959)
The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber 倚天屠龍記 (1961)
Another great example is Crane Iron Pentalogy by Wang Dulu. But why this particular series you may ask? Well, the fourth book in the cycle is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which as everyone knows was adapted for the screen by Ang Lee in 2000 and became a huge hit. Unfortunately none of the books are available in English, and I don't know if anyone has taken the time to translate them online. The books in the Pentalogy are:
Crane Frightens Kunlun He Jing Kunlun 鹤惊昆仑
Treasured Sword, Golden Hairpin Baojian Jinchai 宝剑金钗
Sword Force, Pearl Shine Jian Qi Zhu Guang 剑气珠光
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Wo Hu Cang Long 卧虎藏龙
Iron Knight, Silver Vase Tieji Yinping 铁骑银瓶
As for novels about the Samurai, I'll second CCamfield's recommendation of the Musashi books. They may be a bit dated but they're still enjoyable nonetheless. But one story I think that deserves to be mentioned is Lone Wolf and Cub. Even though it is a manga series rather than a novel, it's still one of the best written series about feudal Japan ever published. Seek it out if you can, all 28 volumes are available in English from Dark Horse Comics.
