OK, not my only hope, but you awesome and wonderful readers can sure save me a ton of time!
I'm starting in on the Appendices for Flying Swordsmen (still got some campaign setting work to do, and the sample characters to write up, and some more exposition/flavor vignettes to help explain the way I see the game being played, but I'm working on the Appendices now as well). My Appendix I (Roman numeral I, not letter I) will be inspirational sources. I'm not gonna get all the way up to N with my Appendices, so I'll start with this one.
Anyway, I've seen plenty of wuxia/martial arts movies. The original game, Dragon Fist, only listed wuxia movies in its inspiration appendix. I want to expand that to books, comics, video games, whatever. That's where you all can help out. If you've got a favorite wuxia/martial arts movie, book, comic, or game, please let me know in the comments. Even if it's only tangentially connected to wuxia (like say, TMNT comics), go ahead and let me know you like it or find it inspiring.
I can't guarantee everything will go in the book, but it will give me a bit of help trying to find things I'm not familiar with but should be! I'm not the world's #1 expert on martial arts or wuxia, I just find the genre really fun and thought Dragon Fist was a cool game that never got a chance and would like to give it a bit of a revival.
My favourite martial arts film is The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, although it's more on the mundane side of wuxia. I'm also fond of A Touch of Zen, Swordsman and New Dragon Gate Inn, all of which are a bit more fantastical.
ReplyDeletePretty much anything to do with Journey to the West is good value. The Penguin Classics version of the text -- called Monkey -- is very well done, and the 70's TV series -- also called Monkey is a classic. The people behind Gorillaz did a stage musical based on the story, and you can get that on CD; I've not heard it myself so I don't know what it's like.
Speaking of music, I've not played Jade Empire, Bioware's wuxia rpg, but I do quite enjoy the soundtrack.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
ReplyDeleteHero
House of Flying Daggers
A Chinese Ghost Story
For martial arts, have u read Ninjas and Superspies RPG? Has a ton of different styles.
Themes for martial arts moves could be based on the elements ('sudden storm', 'graceful breeze', etc.) or on commonly known attacks or behaviors of animals ('serpent's retreat', 'tiger's pounce', etc.)
ReplyDeleteThe comics published by Tony Wong's Jademan Comics. Weapon of the Gods had a rpg based on it.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Chinese poet has been Hanshan since college. It'd be cool to have bits of poetry in your text...
ReplyDeleteI know it's cheesy, but I've always liked Big Trouble in Little China.
My favorite kung fu movie is Ashes of Time. Definately one of the most beautiful and haunting kung fu film I've seen.
If you can ever find it, Legend of the Liquid Sword will blow your mind. Saw in 20 years ago in a theater in Toronto's Chinatown, never heard of it since. Between the Giant Swatika Monks and The Batman (!), it was a great flying swordsman movie ahead of its time.
ReplyDeleteAs for video games, the only halfway decent wuxia game I've played is Bujingai. Most video games with an asian flavor tend to go Japanese.
ReplyDeleteFor video games, "Jade Empire" is the best example that I can think of. It was released for the PC and the original Xbox.
ReplyDeleteThe Xbox version is backwards compatible with the 360 and a downloadable version is available for purchase on their online marketplace. The Steam page for the PC version is right here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/7110/
I know it's cheesy, but I've always liked Big Trouble in Little China.
ReplyDeleteThat's because it's brilliant.