In 1974, Song Jinren 宋今人, the president of Zhen-Shan-Mei Publishing 真善美出版社, one of the top wuxia novel publishers in Taiwan, retired. Upon his retitrement he wrote an essay called “Farewell, Wuxia” in which he gave his views on wuxia, what makes a “proper” or “standard” wuxia novel, and the difficulties writers face and some of the pitfalls they often fall into.

Below I translated the relevant excerpt in which Song Jinren lists his personal criteria for what makes a standard wuxia novel:

As a tradesman in the field, as I say “farewell to wuxia”, let me add my brief, biased outline about this issue based on my years of experience.

The standard wuxia novel must-haves:

(1) Time period is hundreds of years in the past, mostly during the Yuan, Ming, or Qing dynasties.

(2) The setting is mainland China and its frontier regions, occasionally venturing into foreign lands.

(3) The characters are divided into orthodox/good and unorthodox/bad factions, and in the end the good/orthodox triumphs and the unorthodox/bad is defeated.

(4) The male lead possesses both intellectual/literary and martial arts prowess, and is distinguished, king-hearted, and magnanimous. The female lead is beautiful and affectionate, and her martial arts is just as outstanding or even more so.

(5) Swords and sabres and the like are used, not guns.

(6) Particular emphasis is placed on martial arts, physical prowess, miracle drugs, secret manuals, etc.

(7) Features roaming the jianghu, boldly requiting favors or seeking vengeance, respect for one’s teacher/master and their teachings, retirement from the jianghu and going to live in seclusion in the mountain forests.

I have seen it expressed more than once that wuxia cannot take place during the “modern” era (such as the Republican period) because martial arts can’t compete against guns. Still, there have been wuxia novels set in this period. Gu Long wrote one. The second wuxia novel ever, from Xiang Kairan (Unworthy Scholar of Pingjiang), was also one (about folk hero Huo Yuanjia).

It’s also interesting because most wuxia novels in Taiwan were not set in any particular dynasty at all due to a crackdown in 1960 on “leftist” literature that promoted insurrection. Seems to have been focused specifically on banning Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng (who both had worked for the same leftist newspaper previously). Though not expressly banned, most wuxia authors in Taiwan avoided specific dynasties just to play it safe (Yun Zhongyue was a notable exception). That’s why most wuxia novels are not historically based during this period aside from Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, & other Hong Kong writers.

Anyway, the point is Song Jinren himself published many wuxia novels that did not fit these criteria. So this is more his ideal, not a strict “it must be this way or else” statement.

But it does succinctly sum up many of the major features you will find in a wuxia novel. I think it’s a good starting point for undertstanding the genre, especially for the online English webnovel community where “wuxia” is often used erroneously to refer to cultivation novels, be they xuanhuan or xianxia or whatever. Nowadays the line has blurred considerably between wuxia and fantasy and what counts as what.

Some wuxia novels were very much xianxia novels as well, though not quite the same as current webnovels. The xianxia subgenre of wuxia novels was not very popular during the golden age (1950s – 1970s). Most wuxia, though, did and does take place in real-life China, though it may be set in a fictional version of China with its own dynasties, or it might just be vague and set in “ancient” times as most Taiwan wuxia novels were.

One key difference between cultivation novels and wuxia that is obvious is the issue of morality. Wuxia protagonists are almost always “good guys”. Even if they are the leader of a bandit gang or something, they still tend to follow some code of conduct (honor among thieves, etc). The wandering murder hobo trope that people talk about with cultivation novels is not present in wuxia. Even with a more cynical author like Yun Zhongyue, where the protagonist mostly just tries to protect himself and survive, he still follows a code of conduct. Liu Canyang, known for writing ultra violent novels, also has his characters adhere to a moral code. Not necessarily the same code that society accepts, but after all the xia 俠 has always been one who follows his own code and not society’s.

And in wuxia novels, cultivation doesn’t really go beyond developing one’s internal strength (aka inner force, internal energy, etc) and it is not easily quantified in levels or ranks. Martial artists tend to be spoken of as being “first-rate” or “third-rate”, but as for who is really stronger than who, that is the subject of much debate (especially among Jin Yong novel fans). Gu Long doesn’t talk much about inner force at all.

So what is and what isn’t wuxia has always been something nebulous and ill-defined. Like all genres, it’s defined by the books published within it. Genres are defined more by their lineage than by tropes. If you start to compare tropes between genres you will quickly find a lot of overlap, so listing tropes as a way to define a genre can lead to confusion. It’s not enough. So to know you really have to read wuxia novels. Failing that, there are many wuxia films that showcase the same themes and tropes, and are often adapted from novels. If you’ve seen Shaw Bros. movies, you’ve seen wuxia.

The jianghu, btw, is not a difficult concept. It’s simply a world within a world, very much like the world of organized crime in gangster movies/novels, or the “wild west” of the American Western. The jianghu exists everywhere people are, as the saying goes. One thing you see constantly throughout classical Chinese literature is the notion that the jianghu is “out there”, an escape from the fetters of polite society. It’s outside the imperial court, often in opposition to it. Yet there is also much intermingling between the two (say for example, a government official hiring a hitman on the sly to assassinate a political opponent).

But not everyone who roams the jianghu is a martial artist. The community of martial artists within the jianghu is called the wulin, often translated as martial world. See this chart I made showing the relationship between the jianghu and the wulin:

Wuxia is its own genre, has been since 1923,¹ but nowadays it is mostly a dead genre with regard to literature. There are still some movies and TV serials made, and there are some wuxia webnovels and even some print wuxia novels still being published, but much much much reduced from what it used to be. It declined in the 1970s with the rise of wuxia tv and film; many authors even switched to writing screenplays. It’s been in decline ever since.

Its influence has survived in other genres such as cultivation novels, and the lines blur sometimes as genres are mixed together. Is a fantasy novel that features a crime-solving detective a fantasy novel or a mystery/crime novel? It could be considered both, but usually one genre acts as the base or foundation on which elements of another genre are placed. Same happens with wuxia. There are many wuxia novels feature crime solvers (see Gu Long and Wen Rui’an), and there are other novels that feature wuxia elements, such as the faux-historical novel The Grandmaster Strategist, which features the jianghu but is chiefly about warring states. Wuxia takes place in the jianghu, not the imperial court. Yet there is often overlap. So you can’t really say it’s not a wuxia novel either.

Hopefully my point is clear, but if not: what is and isn’t wuxia is a complex issue at times. To know a genre you have to experience it. A simple list of tropes is not adequate. And there is so much borrowing and influencing between genres that it gets harder and hard, especially for wuxia which is not really an active genre anymore and therefore is not really developing anymore, aside from the odd novel published here and there. Perhaps the situation is different for webnovels in mainland China, but wuxia there is also not as popular as other genres.

And at any rate, as Gu Long once said:

One more quick thing: plots. There are a few typical wuxia plots.

By far the most common is revenge. Either the protagonist’s father is killed, his master/teacher, a sibling, a sectmate, or even his whole family or village. Then he must train up and go get revenge.

Finding and fighting over martial arts manuals is another big one. Or treasure.

Some villain, sometimes solo but often the head of some secret organization, is bent on dominating the martial world. The protagonist gets involved somehow in stopping the villain. Many variations on this as far as who the villain could be. In one Wolong Sheng novel it’s the hero’s own mother!

Driving back/out foreign invaders. Less common simply because most wuxia avoided the rise and fall of dynasties as stated above.

The mystery wuxia: hero solves a crime or nefarious plot a la Sherlock Holmes. Gu Long did this a lot, such as with his Lu Xiaofeng and Chu Liuxiang series. Or sometimes it’s constables trying to apprehend a criminal, such as Wen Rui’an with his Four Constables series, or Ximen Ding who had a middle-aged pair of constables.

Roaming the jianghu and getting in adventures, helping people with their problems. This is more a matter of scale as most wuxia novels contain some element of adventure. Some are grand in scale, in which the entire martial world is depicted, or a large chunk of it, with all its major sects and cults and gangs, etc. Wolong Sheng’s Swallow Startles the Dragon and Jin Yong’s Smiling, Proud Wanderer are examples. Others are smaller in scale, such as Qin Hong‘s Song of the Xia, which takes place in a single location and does not mention any martial arts schools or organizations besides the antagonist.

A lot of times several of these plots are combined into one story.

I’m sure there’s more but I am drawing a blank at the moment. Those are the main ones.

1. Of course there are novels and stories that have the same tropes and characteristics of wuxia novels that appeared before 1923—its origins extend at least to the chuanqi of the Tang dynasty—but they were not specifically called “wuxia” back then. In other words, 1923 is when the first novel was specifically classified as a “wuxia novel”, and therefore that is why 1923 is considered the “beginning” of wuxia.