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About The Weaponry
The Chinese martial
tradition, a bit like Chinese cuisine, presents astonishing variety. The country
is so vast, and its local fighting traditions so diverse, that a well-stocked
armory indicates a frightening range of ways to inflict damage on other humans.
Central to the wuxia
mythology is the sword. Chinese distinguish between double-bladed ones, calling
them swords proper, and single-bladed ones, which regardless of size and design
are usually called knives. There are broadswords like the Green Destiny Sword in
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and lighter sabre-like swords, as
well as heavy cutlass-like blades (often pierced with rings to snag the
opponent's weapon and to distract the opponent with their clanging). Shorter
swords are often used in pairs, such as the so-called "butterfly
swords," and the emei, or blades with arrow-like points at each end.
Western fans often assume
that the exotic weaponry on display in wuxia films is an invention of
moviemakers, but very often it comes from tradition. The simple staff, which may
be as long as seven feet, can also have one or two joints (making it useful for
delivering a hard, swinging blow or for enclosing an opponent's arm). Bruce Lee
popularized the short jointed staff, best known by its Japanese name, nunchaku.
Whips may be sectional as well. Spears come in a dazzling variety of shapes,
including the jagged-edged "snakehead" spear and the hook-spear.
Spears often have colorful tassels or feathers which distract the opponent from
the blade's maneuvers. There are hand axes, hammers with heavy spherical heads,
and heavy cudgels with bulbous, gourd-shaped heads. For throwing there are darts
and arrows, razor-edged stars and boomerang-style blades, and the infamous
"flying guillotine," a rattan basket with an opening lined with
knives. During the 1960s and 1970s, many wuxia pian built their plots around the
sheer variety of Chinese arms. Zhang Che's New One-Armed Swordsman,
for instance, gave the villain a two-jointed staff, the secondary protagonist a
pair of heavy butterfly swords, and the main protagonist a single light
broadsword, so the combat was not only among fighters but among weapons and
techniques.
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