MovieChat Forums > Shu shan zheng zhuan (2001) Discussion > several things

several things

posted 20 years ago by Mox_Factor
7 replies | jump to latest

1. know that this is a part of a much larger tale, a chinese mythological epic about Taoist legends surrounding the Zu mountain ranges. The original story's fame in Chinese communities is almost equal to that of Three Kingdoms or 108 Bandit Kings.

2. the older movie of a similar name starring Brigitte Lin and Adam Cheng is much better of a movie overall. If you don't mind watching 'old fashioned' movie tech, then definitely watch that one first.

3. Ziyi Zhang's part in this new version didn't help the story at all, she was just there because she was in Horizontal Tiger, Vertical Dragon. (HK joke name for Crouching)

--sorry, but i can't take any opinion that starts with "yo" seriously.

[–] Southern Crane 20 years ago

Yeah, I hear Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain is pretty good. I've been meaning to see it. Supposedly, it's special effects were top notched for 1983.

A lot of people don't like Legend of Zu. I admit the script has a few holes and doesn't flow smoothly. But overall, it's not a bad film. The special effects (except for the final fight scene between King Sky and Red :x) and the sound and music are outstanding.

It's a visiually and audibly stunning film that just falls short of the mark.

http://csc.ziyi.org

[–] Mox_Factor 20 years ago

ya, hong kong filmmakters tends to care more for the gimmick than the story itself, more so than hollywood filmmakers. seldomly, it might work out and movies like Golden Chicken were made, but more often than not, most hk movies are not famous for it's script and it's direction.

--sorry, but i can't take any opinion that starts with "yo" seriously.

[–] Southern Crane 20 years ago

Speaking of, I hear that Golden Chicken is pretty good and that it's doing very well in Asian theaters. If I'm not mistake, isn't "Golden Chicken" a term for a very high priced prostitute?

A friend once said that golden chickens were usually actresses and models and so on, and that he could only afford a silver chicken. I then joked that my budget would barely allow for a bronze chicken (no such thing)! lol

Yeah.. bad joke. :o

How many books were the Zu films based on? Wasn't it a long series of them?

http://csc.ziyi.org

[–] Mox_Factor 20 years ago

not sure about what Golden Chicken exactly refers to but "Chicken" in cantonese does mean prostitute.

--about Zu, *some of following text in (Traditional Chinese)Big-5 encoding*

it's written by Áٯ]¼ӥD (huanzhulouzhu).

here's a list of all his martial arts literature. (Simplified Chinese GB coding)
http://www.qfxl.com/wuxia/huanzhulouzhu/huanzhulouzhu.htm

here's a martial arts literature paper in english and chinese (Trad.Chin.) Big-5 encoding.
http://www.muhupin.x-y.net/TAIWAN-1.htm

i guess the Zu Mountain stories aren't very popular outside of China and Hong Kong because almost all the links i can find from google refers to only 1 piece of work. "Blades of the Willows" which seems to be the only novel that has been translated into english. I wish I could find more info about him in english to show to my non-chinese literate friends because he is just as good, if not better than Jin Yong, just less recognized because perhaps his works tend to be much more fantasy based, where his characters are often magical and flying(Fairies/Demigods "¥P").

--sorry, but i can't take any opinion that starts with "yo" seriously.

[–] Southern Crane 20 years ago

That's a pretty good link on translation of wuxia fiction! The author's name looks very familiar but I can't place where I've seen it before. If it's your's, do you mind if I host it on my website. My wuxia fiction pages get a lot of hits. I think people would be interested in reading this too.

Yeah... many unfamiliar with wuxia would get the initial impression from a great many lifelong readers that Jin Yong is incomparable. It's my impression that he too "dabbles in" fantasy writing too. Not nearly as much as Huanzhulouzhu probably did. But certainly more than Gu Long.

With all the fairies, gods, semi-gods, demons, etc, I can tell from just the film that Huanzhulouzhu books must be heavily fantasy-based. It's very different and I really enjoyed it just the same. Any idea where I might be able to find Blades of the Willows in English?

http://csc.ziyi.org

[–] Mox_Factor 20 years ago

i just found the links via google after trying to translate everything between english and chinese over and over again. =) unfortunately, other than Jin Yong, not many other Chinese fiction writers gets much popularity outside of the chinese speaking communities. Especially not those who write in fantasy/sci-fi genre.

wish i could help but i didn't even know Blades of the Willows was translated into english before the search. I've only read Legend of Zu Mountain from Huanzhulouzhu's works and that was in Chinese. good luck to you though, i really hope you can find it and enjoy chinese fantasy novels as much as i did (and still do) I've reread JY's Condor Heroes so many times I can't count anymore.

btw, a really old folklore turned epic called Liang Shan 108 ge Hao Han (108 Bandit Kings) is quite a good read also. Translated to japanese and english many times over. It's become one of the top 3 most popular tales from china. It's less fantasy than JY's work but also less based on true accounts than 3 Kingdoms. It's about repression and corruption in the imperial courts leading to the exile of many heroes, who ended up gathering on a mountain, becoming bandits somewhat like Robin Hood and his band.

--sorry, but i can't take any opinion that starts with "yo" seriously.

[–] sxamei 19 years ago

I don't know if you've seen "the princess returning pearl" Huanzu gege in Chinese...You might have seen the name from there~!