Chinese wuxia 101: How did kung fu masters come to fly?

This article is part of CGTN's "China in Ink" project. The project brings the tremendous world of classic Chinese literature to the fingertips of global audiences.

Of all the stunts that draw people to action movies, few capture the unique appeal of martial arts better than the elegant glide in the air by a sword-wielding kung fu master. Chinese cinemagoers can't seem to get enough of such marvels of "wuxia" – a genre of Chinese fiction known for martial arts and chivalrous kung fu masters. They spent $90 million in February on "The Legend of Condor Heroes: The Gallants," an adaptation of a 20th century bestseller, making it the latest top-grossing wuxia film.

Chinese martial arts literature existed for a millennium before cinema pioneers exposed the actions to the celluloid film. Masters defying gravity by means of "qi," the mysterious inner energy, has been a narrative hallmark.

But how has this fantasy come to be? And why do Chinese people love it? The answer is tied to, apart from wireworks, the evolution of the wuxia genre.

The word "wuxia" has two characters. "Wu" denotes martial arts and "xia" is close to the concept of knight-errant. Sima Qian, a Chinese historian who lived through the second to first century BC, writes a whole chapter in his "Records of the Grand Historian" about some famous "xia" before his time. Recognizing that they do not always abide by the law, Sima Qian doesn't flinch from praising their altruism and willingness to risk life for what they deem righteous. The biography laid the moral track from which wuxia literature almost never deviates.

Before anyone could leap over a 10-feet wall, "xia" vanished from history books after Sima Qian – for the same reason that the sheriff of Nottingham wouldn't green light a memoir of Robin Hood. The extinction of "xia" in official records did not stop their rebellious spirit from spilling into other literatures. But the problem with Sima Qian's historical "xia," as far as the wuxia genre is concerned, is their ignorance of kung fu, let alone the ability to float in the air. That reverie came down from a different line of work.

Tang Dynasty (618-907) poets were the first ones to glorify fighting in "xia." They fancied themselves as the inheritors of the free spirit of these "xia." Great Chinese poet Li Bai created a prototypical imagery for wuxia that's solitary like a sheathed blade but fierce once drawn out his solitude:

"The slain has barely touched the dust, while the swordsman is already 10 steps away. His sword is so feared that within a thousand miles, no one dares to stand in his way."

On the back of these poetic images, the anonymous Tang tale writers made narrative breakthroughs. Gallant martial artists coming to save the day emerged as a popular motif. Their "kung fu," as depicted in the early texts, was also extravagant. Among them was the swanning in the air. A surviving Tang tale speaks about an unassuming old servant turning out to be a "xia" hiding in plain sight. He blows the cover to save his lovesick master's ladylove from confinement. Being caught in action, he "jumps over lofty walls and vanishes in a blink, leaving arrows shot at him raining down the empty air where his body just cut through."

As full-length vernacular novels gained traction during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), fighting scenes became more graphic. Flowery language sensationalized the actions which inspired the kung fu cinema championed by Bruce Lee. A punch in the face leaves all the gore pouring out of the victim's head like "swatches of cloth in a draper's shop" (Water Margin, 16th century).

The continuing expansion of wuxia vocabulary is also in debt to a systematic conceptualization of martial arts. Huang Zongxi, a 17th century Confucianism scholar and historian, penned a eulogy for a martial artist that became the earliest surviving source where combat techniques are divided into the schools of "external" and "internal." The former focuses on muscle building to enhance offensive, represented by Shaolin kung fu, while the latter can "overcome action with stillness," of which tai chi is an example. The internal school's Taoist roots might provide the last puzzle that links the operation of "qi" to the accomplishment of a weightless body in wuxia fiction.

Early Taoist thinkers, such as Zhuangzi of the fourth century BC, compare the total spiritual autonomy to wandering through the universe by harnessing "qi." In light of the Taoist thinking that men's knowledge is a shadow of the laws of nature, "qi" should also exist internally and could be harnessed:

"It was strange, he had to admit. The Taoist had not taught him even one martial art move, but he was noticeably quicker and lighter … by moving the qi around his body." ("Legends of the Condor Heroes 1: A Hero Born" by Jin Yong and translated by Anna Holmwood, MacLehose Press)

The boom of wuxia novels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries drew the attention of early Chinese filmmakers. With the help of wirework, the first master flew across the silver screen in 1928. "The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple" became such an immediate commercial success that 18 sequences were made over the subsequent three years. Unfortunate for modern aficionados, the pilot picture didn't survive Japan's full-scale invasion of China (1937-1945).

After the war, filmmakers and novelists based in Hong Kong began to revive wuxia, kicking off their creative frenzy with different approaches to the flying heroes.

The combat scenes in the cinematic world turned more realistic as real kung fu practitioners began to design the fights, and creative camera movements and editing stepped up the actions as well. The new kung fu genre's popularity culminated in Bruce Lee's stardom in the 1970s.

While film directors anchored actors down for kung fu realism, novelists showed no qualm keeping the high-flyers in their serialized stories. "Qi masters" who could mobilize the mana to glide through the air and knock opponents down without even touching them competed for readerships in newspapers every week.

The city was enthralled by these "New School" wuxia, as the works penned throughout the 1950s to 70s are later known. Some of the most celebrated writers made their name during this period, including Jin Yong, pen name for Louis Cha Leung-yung, and Chen Wentong, who wrote under the name of Liang Yusheng. They fit their narratives into historic background, evoking the traditions in Sima Qian's work. More pages were allowed for characters to grow. Their writings were refined as well compared to the pre-war works.

Some of their finest titles were adapted for the silver screen and TV time and again. Young readers on the Chinese mainland were immediately enchanted with the flying wuxia after they were introduced in the 1980s, and their love has never faded.

The modern enthusiasm for wuxia stories probably doesn't vary much in its essence from the sentiment with which Zhuangzi elaborates, Sima Qian writes, and the Tang poets reminisce: for an unconditional autonomy that is a luxury in the real world.

The kung fu masters flew in a dreamland, the boundary of which straddles between reality and fantasy. But no matter how long they hovered in the air, the earthly pull would always drag them down. Thus, wuxia's deed can be, in another word, tragic – enthusiastically rising to a fight that they know is futile. But it is this struggle that underpins the appeal of wuxia films.

(Cover: The production site of a wuxia TV series in Sichuan Province, China, where actors are lifted up with wireworks, November 2004. /CFP)