Aside from Qiong Yao, one very important figure for Chinese drama fans that they should not overlook is the awesome writer known as scholar Dr. Louis Cha who is a lawyer and doctorate in philosophy. His writing styles may have inspired other writers of Chinese fiction. For one, his works were influential they went all the way from novels to becoming big screen. He is mostly known for writing fictional martial artists, quite often doing impossible feats, non-existent martial arts styles mixed with existent martial arts styles. One cannot deny the beauty of his fiction while he takes artistic license of using real life elements such as existing conflicts in history.
His common style of writing were set at 6th Century B.C., 11th Century A.D., 13th Century A.D., 14th Century A.D., 16th Century A.D., 17th Century A.D. and 18th Century A.D. He also was fond of creating various conflicting sects and schools of martial arts, rivaling each other aside from the imperial powers that would fight each other. Some of its sects do exist in real life like the Shaolin Sect and Wudang sect as well as the less documented Beggar Sect. These sects had their own fictitious characters involved in the conflict. Some of conflicts also involve Taoist martial arts' schools and Buddhist martial arts' schools. Most of his series also feature Taoist teachers and Buddhist monks involved either as allies or rival sects.
Along the conflict of the schools, sects and empires would come in the beautifully woven love stories of its characters. Some of its love stories are supposedly "forbidden" like between commoners and royalty or in the case of Return of Condor Heroes, Yang Guo falls for Xiao Longnu who was once his martial arts trainer. Some of them involve women who rise above the norms of their times. For example, in the China that is set during that time, women weren't viewed as persons. However these female protagonists are fighters of gender equality. At the same time, his male protagonists treat females as their equals at the same time. The relationships tend to get complex but it's what makes shows based on his novels fun to watch, because of complex plots.
Perhaps one controversial part was how he was banned for some time in both Taiwan and China, though none of these bans exist today. During the 1970s, some thought they were satires of Mao Zedong while others thought they were supporting the Communist Party of China. Deng Xiaopeng had also said to have praised Jin Yong's work. China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are places where Jin Yong's novels are popularized. Some of the have even been famous in Japan. I've heard of an Anime version of Return of Condor Heroes as well.
For one, I would be interested to study his works to learn how to write my own stories!
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