By | Published July 16, 2010

A few years ago, Films at the Gate, the annual Boston Chinatown outdoor film festival I help program, screened a silent film called RED HEROINE, which was made in Shanghai in 1929. The story, about a young woman rescued from a lecherous warlord and then trained in swordplay by a wandering Taoist, struck me as a remarkable example of an early feminist fable. I remember asking a Chinese friend of mine, “Where do these stories come from?” Did young women in old China really devote their lives to the study of martial arts, forsaking conventional society? Her response was, “Well, keep in mind that most women want to get married.”

According to Roland Altenburger, author of “The Sword or the Needle: The Female Knight-errant (xia) in Traditional Chinese Narrative” (Peter Lang, 2009), even if swordswomen were rare in real life, their fictional counterparts have thrived for centuries in the Chinese literary form known as xiaoshuo. This term, which can be translated as “petty talk,” was originally applied to what we would think of as genre fiction. Serious scholars, following the example of Confucius, originally accepted only dynastic histories and works of philosophy or moral teaching as worthwhile topics for the literate. Romances, ghost stories, and adventure tales were considered rather disreputable, which didn’t stop them from becoming enormously popular. The intellectual prejudice against xiaoshuo meant that, until recently, little historical research has been done into the roots of popular fiction in China. The latest scholarship shows that those roots go very deep.

The great epic novels of China, such as “Journey to the West” and “Water Margin,” are well known to serious kung fu movie fans. Their plots have served as the basis for countless films. But few westerners are aware of the multitude of other martial arts stories and full length novels that have inspired Chinese filmmakers since the early silent era. Whether in straightforward adaptations or as bits and pieces cobbled into a new story, directors from King Hu to Ang Lee have drawn on tales of the xia, or sword-fighting knights, for their productions. And one of the most fascinating themes in xia literature is the nuxia, or female knight.

A picture of Nie Yinniang from a 1901 Chinese novel.

Altenburger draws a distinction between the nuxia, portrayed as deceptively frail-looking beauties with a cold aura (think Hsu Feng or Cheng Pei-pei), and other types of female martial artists, including women generals (nujiang) or robust hero types (haohan), such as the female characters in “Water Margin.” The earliest nuxia prototype is found in the story of the assassin Nie Yinniang, from the “Taiping Guangji,” a compilation dating to the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD). Nie was the daughter of a general. While still a child, she was kidnapped by a Buddhist nun and trained in swordplay. Returning to her family, she slips out at night on secret missions for her teacher, killing her targets without mercy. Eventually she independently selects a low status mirror grinder as her husband and becomes an agent of the local government. When she decides that a neighboring ruler is more just and worthy of her skills, she and her husband defect, turning against her former employer. Eventually, after rendering valuable services as a bodyguard, she retires, abandoning her husband and home to return to the mountaintop hermitage of her teacher.

The story of Nie Yinniang is not just a thrilling action-packed adventure, it also manages to upend virtually every Confucian precept and orthodox stricture of feminine behavior. In this way, it’s typical of one strand of the xia tradition, exalting the virtues of wu (the martial realm) above those of wen (the literary or civil realm identified by Confucius as the apex of Chinese society and the only fitting pursuit of “the superior man”). This tension between wen and wu is a hallmark of nuxia literature. Some authors seem to go out of their way to mock Confucian tenets, while others shape the stories to finally affirm orthodox values, letting the female knights see the error of their ways, put down their weapons, and get married to a suitable young man, preferably a scholar. Much to the dismay of the reformers, audiences have always tended to prefer the action scenes to the morally uplifting denouement.

Hsu Feng in A TOUCH OF ZEN.

Nuxia characters continued to appear in xiaoshuo works from the Song and Ming eras. Many of these stories revolved around the theme of revenge. The swordswoman may be avenging a personal grievance or punishing injustice. One of the most famous stories is Xianu, from the collection known as “Liaozhai Zhiyi” by the early Qing dynasty author Pu Songling (1640-1715). It is familiar to western audiences as the basis of King Hu’s film A TOUCH OF ZEN (1971). A poor young scholar falls in love with a mysterious young woman who moves in next door. She is on a mission of revenge against the man who killed her father, but repays the scholar’s kindness to her elderly mother by bearing him a child, which she leaves behind after accomplishing her goal. Like most nuxia characters of the time, she has magical powers and superhuman skill with weapons. The story represents a combination of xia and scholar-beauty romance genres.

As the tales proliferated, later Qing dynasty authors were very aware of their predecessors’ works, and frequently incorporated characters and incidents from them into new stories. Nie Yinniang and other nuxia, now Taoist immortals, teach the younger generations and send them into the world on martial quests. The end of the Qing dynasty and the founding of the Chinese Republic, which saw improvements in literacy rates and printing technology, brought new popularity to martial heroines like Shisanmei and Fang Yuqing. Shisanmei, from “Ernu Yingxiong Zhuan” (Heroic Sons and Daughters,1878) is tough and resourceful, only to be “domesticated” as a scholar’s wife in the second half of the original book. Later revisions, including opera versions, emphasized the martial elements of her story and even provided variant endings. From 1927 to 1931, the director and lead actress of RED HEROINE, Wen Yimin and Fan Xuepeng, made a five part movie series based on “Ernu Yingxiong Zhuan.” Fang Yuqing was the main character from “Huangjiang Nuxia” (Swordswoman of Huangjian), a successful newspaper serial which ran from 1929 to 1940 in Shanghai, and was also made into a thirteen part film series. The first film, dating from 1930 and starring actress Xu Qinfang, still exists in fragmentary condition.

Betty Loh Ti as Shisanmei in a 1959 Shaw Brothers production.

Although many of these original wuxia stories remain obscure and unread, echoes of their themes and characterizations resonate in today’s swordplay films. And Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien is currently prepping THE ASSASSIN (2010), based on the story of Nie Yinniang, bringing that immortal Tang dynasty heroine into the 21st century.

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