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The Wuxia
is a particularly Chinese type of hero (or heroine). Wu means martial,
and a rough equivalent for xia in Western culture would be knight-errant.
Unlike the knight-errant, however, the Wuxia is a free spirit, not
belonging to any class. In the world of the Wuxia, the most important
values are honor, loyalty and individual justice.
These qualities became
ideals, and the Wuxia became a mythical, larger than life hero in the Chinese
imagination. By the Qing Dynasty, in the 18th and the 19th centuries. Wuxia
fiction was very popular. The story of the Wuxia became a fantasy of
power, romance and moral duty - embodied by Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien in Crouching
Tiger.
As the genre developed,
the Wuxia character became a more independent figure, often serving the
basic principles of honor and justice themselves, rather than a particular
master. In this respect, the Wuxia is not unlike the familiar Western
hero - the lone cowboy riding into town to exact justice and right wrongs. The
world of the Wuxia is different from that of society. The Wuxia operates
in a realm under the surface of society and the rule of law, called Jiang Hu.
A world made up of individuals and their relationships, rather than the
collective and the government. These relationships can exist entirely outside of
the law. For example, the Wuxia can be a member of an underground,
Mafia-type organization, but loyalty and honor are still the main values. In
serving a master, the Wuxia keeps his or her word, even to the point of
death. (Today, the term Jiang Hu has a broader meaning, referring to the
entanglements of life and relationships in a society).
The fictional Jiang Hu world is very popular in Chinese culture. Li Mu
Bai's character - righting wrongs, staying true to his word - is wishful
thinking come true. A constant theme of the Wuxia novels is that of
surpassing your abilities through practicing your martial art. You keep doing
this, and fulfill the final achievement, which is transcendence.
Internal strength is, in
essence a search for nothingness, in the void, to find your strength. Because
you are pulled apart by tension, which comes from external emotions, complex
relationships -- all your strength goes in different directions. If you can lose
this tension and direct all your energy to one channel, find transcendence, then
you can create tremendous power and wisdom.
Li Mu Bai practices the
Wudang style of martial arts. In the popular imagination of Wuxia stories,
a distinction is made between this and the Shaolin style of martial arts. The
more violent Shaolin stands for outer strength, while Wudang - the style of Li
Mu Bai - signifies inner strength. In fact, the two styles have a common
origin in the efforts of ordinary Chinese to defend themselves from danger.
Fighting eventually became the province of the military, and was further refined
and codified into the Chinese martial arts. The disciplines of Wudang and Shaolin
are not separate or opposite. In Chinese philosophy as a whole - and not just
martial arts - inner and outer strength are both integral parts of every living
being. Just as everyone has the Buddha within themselves, they also have a
tremendous power - the crouching tiger, ready to leap out. The key is to
achieve a balance, to seek harmony and reduce conflicts. Therefore to focus on
real strength.
Coming from this kind of
culture, stories like Crouching Tiger have been generally filmed in
a particularly Eastern cinematic style. I have also worked in the very different
Western cinematic tradition. Rather than choose between these two, I let the
creative tension between these two styles became an important part of the making
of Crouching Tiger.
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