<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Wuxia Films
Wuxia films or wuxia pian (Îä‚bƬ Pinyin: w¨³xi¨¢ pi¨¤n) is a film genre from Taiwan and Hong Kong. The term "wuxia", from Mandarin Chinese, means "martial arts heroes". Because of distinguishing characteristics, this genre is considered different from other martial arts film styles.

This genre has been around in the Pacific Rim region since the 1950s or 1960s. The Shaw Studio was the forerunner of this type of movies. It was introduced to mainstream Hollywood for the first time in 2000 by Ang Lee's movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. However, in 1986, John Carpenter's film Big Trouble in Little China drew heavily on the wuxia style.

This genre is characterized by its fantasy component. The heroes in the movie practice martial arts to reach a state where they attain any number of superhuman powers collectively known as shengong (Éñ¹¦), so that they can, among other things:

float in air
scale a cliff or wall
have lightning fast movement
release mystical inner energy (qi) in a form of a beam
paralyze or kill their opponents by hitting their acupressure points with a finger
This type of movie usually has a setting in the past so that the audience can justify the fantasy component more readily with an assumption that the methods to practice these supernatural abilities have been lost. There are occasional wuxia movies in modern settings, but they are usually considered unrealistic. When the Star Wars movie came out in the late 1970s, many Chinese audience viewed it as a western wuxia movie set in a futuristic and foreign world. It is unknown if George Lucas's concept of the Jedi was influenced by the wuxia genre. The audience can readily accept the concept of the Force in the Star Wars series or the superpowers of mutants in X-Men or an alien in Superman. However, the same Western audience may have trouble accepting the wuxia type of fantasy because the wuxia heroes are supposed to be regular people with superpowers.

The Matrix series has many elements of wuxia, however, the heroes and the primary villains of The Matrix gain their supernatural powers by recognizing and bending the rules of artificial reality. They can nonetheless run along walls, leap superhuman distances, and, in more specific cases, fly, levitate, transform into shrieking wraiths, and dodge and stop bullets.

The storylines of this genre are mostly about revenge for killings in the context of a lawless state of society known as Jiang Hu. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a rare wuxia movie that broke out of this mold.

Following Ang Lee's foot steps, Zhang Yimou made Hero targeted for the international market in 2003.

There is a strong link between wuxia films and wuxia novels, such as those of Jinyong. Many of the films are based on novels; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an example of this.</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by JudgeDredd:
<Flamebird> i was watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon the other night.. and i was wondering where all the tigers and dragons are
<Flamebird> then i realised they're all crouching and hidden
<Flamebird> :/</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Mort-Hog:
I'd be interested what Chinese speakers think of it.

I can't help but feel that some of it is lost in the translation. I am very glad that it is subbed and not dubbed, my version at least.
I usually hate dubbed films. There's something about a little Jacky Chan with a deep gruff black voice that just doesn't work.
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SAJN_Master:
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SAJN_Master:
I don't think so *shrug*

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