GU LONG : INTERNATIONAL (SWORDS)MAN OF MYSTERY

When you hear "martial arts novels", you can think of several famous writers of Chinese literature.  But when you hear "mystery martial arts novels", only one name can pop in your mind: Gu Long.

Born in Hong Kong in 1937 as Xiong Yao-hua, he was the most popular martial arts novelist of Taiwan, where he emigrated when he was 13. In deep passion for literature since his childhood, he shows a big interest to European and American novels and starts to write professionally in 1956 by "completing" novels of other writers (a common practise at that time). For four years, he wrote love stories to make a living. Then, the trend changes, people want to read martial arts novels. And that's what he begins to write. In 1960, he writes his first official novel " " ( ) under the pseudonym of Gu Long. 

Firstly for the Money. Secondly for Pleasure.

In the beginning, even if there is a rough competition amongst the martial arts novelists (more than 300 at that time!), Gu Long's focus is on his writing and successfully delivers a different and original style, compared to the others. Of course, this very new style comes from his western influences as well as the romantic stories he used to write. Let's also bear in mind the usefulness of his own life experience to write his stories.

In fact, Gu Long never hid his eccentric lifestyle. He had three main motivations: writing, alcohol and women. Moreover, he garnered a bad reputation in the publishing world, by asking for royalties before writing the book, and finishing his writing after the deadlines.

During the first part of his career, Gu Long mostly wanted to make money. He was paid according to the number of words he wrote. That's why he made such enormous books of thousands of pages. But when his situation became more comfortable, he improved the quality of his writing, and made shorter novels, like for instance, the Chu Liu-xiang stories… 

Chu Liu-xiang : Swordsman & Detective 

Chu Liu-xiang is a knight from the ancient China who lives in the mysterious and deadly "Boxer's World" (or "Jiang Hu"). This handsome first-class martial artist who has an unparalleled intelligence is also witty, powerful, charismatic and no womenl can resist his charming smile. He's a perfect cross between James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, and there's also a little something of Robin Hood in him: He steals from the rich  to give to the poor.

Chu Liu-xiang, played by Ti Lung in 1976 ( CLANS OF INTRIGUE) In the first book of his adventures, " " ( - 1968), Chu Liu-xiang is described as a man with expensive tastes who likes to travel and enjoy life on his boat with his three maids. One day, he discovers several bodies floating on the water. He's later wrongly accused for those murders, and also for the robbery of a deadly poison (the "Sacred Water") from a place named Divine Water Palace.

To prove his innocence, Chu Liu-xiang decides to make his own investigations, which brings us into a story full of surprises, with a lot of complicated intrigues, and many exciting plot twists. In the end, he discovers that the murderer is one of his best friends, a monk named Wu-hua, who prefers to commit suicide - apparently- instead of getting judged…  

Right after " ", Gu Long wrote two other Chu Liu-xiang stories. In " " ( - 1969), Chu Liu-xiang is looking for his kidnapped maids. In this adventure, he is helped by two fellow friends, including Hu tie-hua, a character who many similarities with the partner of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson.

Hu tie-hua participates a lot in the intrigue and he makes fun of the hero when he has difficulties to find a clue, but he cannot attract women like Chu Liu-xiang and he's a bit jealous of him. However, the three friends are captured in the desert by a callous martial artist, The Stone Avalokitesvara, who's also supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The captives are then helped out by a mysterious masked killer named The Trush.

During this adventure full of suspense, we discover that the monk Wu Hua faked his death in the first book (but in this one, he dies for real), and at the end, Chu Liu-xiang still didn't find his friends. That brings us to the third book, " " ( - 1970), where Chu Liu-xiang and Hu Tie-hua have to go to the Divine Water Palace to find an antidote to save a young woman, Wu-mei (who might be The Trush). But Yin-chi, the princess of the palace, also promises the antidote to Wu-mei, only if she kills Chu Liu-xiang and brings her his head…

Before the final twist, the reader doesn't really know who's good or bad, who can be trusted and truthful. Those kinds of situations are the most representative characteristics of Gu Long stories. Moreover, in this third Chu Liu-xiang's adventure, that ends a first trilogy for this character, we finally find answers to many questions that we've asked ourselves ever since the first book. For example: Why was Chu Liu-xiang accused of stealing the sacred water.

Mixed Adaptations

After " ", Five more Chu Liu-xiang stories were written by Gu Long until 1979. But during that time, the author also created several other swordsmen/detectives heroes and anti-heroes in many successful novels, both commercially and artistically.

The 70's were really the golden era of Gu Long's work. Concerning Chu Liu-xiang, his first adventures were adapted for the first time on the big screen in May 1977. Released in Hong Kong  under the English title Clans of Intrigue (the original Chinese title is simply Chu Liu-xiang), it was produced by the prestigious Shaw Brothers studio and directed by Chu Yuan, who's already 17 years of experience in the business, but only 7 in martial arts movies. Like Gu Long, wasn't really interested by the martial arts aspect of the stories, but more about the characters descrīptions, the intrigues and the drama parts…

Detective/Swordsman Chu Liu-xiang & his maids ( CLANS OF INTRIGUE) One year earlier, Chu Yuan directed his first Gu Long adaptation, Killer Clans, from " " ( - 1973), a book strongly influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. Considered until now, like one of the best Gu Long's adaptation, Killer Clans was a big success (HK$ 1,5 Million, one of the ten best successes of 1976), and makes Chu Yuan become THE specialist of Gu Long stories.

KILLER CLANS, the first Gu Long's adaptation by Chu Yuan with Yueh Hua & Chen Ping Before Clans of Intrigue, he also directed Magic Blade, adapted from  " " ( - 1975), which was written, according to Gu Long's words," when he was in his most depressed mood". For this one, Chu Yuan decides to have a different approach (originally, the hero was sick and not that heroic) and delivers a movie close to Sergio Leone's "Spaghetti Westerns"…

MAGIC BLADE : Ming Yueh-hsin, the seductress (Tien Ni) & Fu Hung-hsueh, the hero (Ti Lung)  The success of Clans of Intrigue (HK$ 2,5 millions) was even more amazing than Killer Clans and Magic Blade combined. And the same year, four other Gu Long adaptations by Chu Yuan were released in Hong Kong (!!) .They made around HK$ 1,5 millions each. But, how good were those adaptations? In one word: Excellent! 

In the case of Clans of Intrigue, Chu Yuan wisely used elements from the first and the third Chu Liu-xiang books to make one scrīpt (*). Briefly : The story starts by the killings and the robbery of the Sacred Water and ends at the Divine Water Palace. He, hence had to get rid of the historical background and many secondary characters (and there was many) to go to the point and make his story fit in a 90-minute film. Despite of that, he succeeds in keeping the substance of the original novels and the essential elements who characterize Gu Long's stories: suspense, intrigue, investigation, mysterious masked killer, seduction, tricks, betrayals, power, money, twists, and even sex…

Monk Wu-hua, Chu Liu-xiang & Yi-chi's lover ( CLANS OF INTRIGUE) Sex, Lies & Censorship

There are many various kinds of vicious and tricky techniques in Gu Long's novels, like poison or hidden weapons. But the most efficient of all would probably be the combination of sex and love.

For example, in the third Chu Liu-xiang novel, we learn that the charming monk Wu-hua seduced the daughter of Princess Yin-chi to steal the Sacred Water. To be more specific, Yin-chi hates men, and can only be sexually satisfied by women. That's why all of her disciples are young and beautiful women and that no men are allowed in the Palace.

But Wu-hua manages to go there, because of the fact that he's a monk, and that nobody suspects him of having any relationship with a woman. So he can easily manipulate the daughter with lies, and she steels her own mother for him. Even worse and cruel: she gives her virginity to Wu-hua, and now that he has everything he wanted, just leaves her. In her desperate suffering, she decides to commit suicide…

With the censorship going on in Hong Kong and the scrīpt moral standards at that time, Chu Yuan manages to represent some adult aspects of the story without difficulty, especially female homosexuality, because he already dealt with the subject before: precisely in 1972...

Indeed, four years before making Killer Clans, Chu Yuan did a very special martial arts movie: Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, which is quite similar to a Gu Long story (but Chu Yuan didn't knew anything about Gu Long at that time).

This revenge tale is about a police detective investigating the murders of local noblemen.  We soon learn (or guess) that those crimes were committed by a prostitute named Ai Nu (which means "love slave") who was kidnapped and sold  to a  lesbian "Madam", Lady Chun.

INTIMATE CONFESSIONS... : Ai Nu (Lily Ho) is lovely slaved by Lady Chun (Betty Pei Ti) As Ai Nu rejects Lady Chun's love, she's being abused by her and raped by several rich businessmen. After this traumatic experience, she decides to please Lady Chun, by becoming the madam's protégé and lover. A good technique to prepare her revenge quietly…

INTIMATE CONFESSIONS... : Madam Chun also likes the taste of blood. This first "lesbian martial arts movie" of film history, was a big controversial phenomenon and a huge success in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Clans of Intrigue, Chu Yuan tries again to describe subtlety the magnificence of the relation between Princess Yin-chi and one of her disciple. But strangely, those scenes were cut, and in the "official" version of the movie (released in DVD by ), the affair they were having is only evoked. In the "alternate" version of the movie (owned by a few crazy fans), you can clearly see the two women kiss and hug each other. 

CLANS OF INTRIGUE : deleted scene with the princess (Betty Pei-ti) and her disciple (Nora Miao) Gu Long Forever

In the late 70's, Gu Long's novels were so popular that a Chu Lu-xiang TV series was also created. Gu Long even established his own movie company, Bao Sian to make films from his novels, but they weren't as successful as the Shaw Brothers productions.

Gu Long was so keen on women and drinking, that it made his personal life quite a drama itself - twice a divorce and a lethal love story with alcohol. In September 1985, he died of cirrhosis and oesophageal haemorrhage at the age of 48.

Nowadays, his novels are still popular in Asia, but maybe less amongst the young generation. Movies and TV series are regularly inspired by his work with commercial success (artistically, it's another story, because most of them are very mainstream and less daring that of Chu Yuan's movies).

Unfortunately, western countries still don't have the opportunity to know about Gu Long: Among the 70 books he wrote, only one, " Xiao Shiyi Lang" ( The Eleventh Son), was officially translated in English. And it was only in 2004!

Because of this frustrating situation, Gu Long fans created an alternative way for the non-Chinese readers to promote and share the best of his work: online translations. So, Thanks to Internet and all those websites and forums dedicated to this amazing and unique author. We hope this encouraging behaviour will convince some publishers to release properly those novels overseas - because Gu Long deserves it. 

Frederic Ambroisine (December 28th, 2007)

This is the extended version of my article published in the mystery issue of "WestEast Magazine" in 2006.

(*) In 1978, one year after Clans of Intrigue, Chu Yuan will adapt another novel with Chu Liu-xiang, " " ( - 1971). In the first part of the movie Legend of the Bat, he's using some elements from the second novel, " " ( - 1970). 

Some links...

The Life and Works of Gu Long - Wuxiapedia - Wuxiaworld - Reading Rooms - Spcnet.tv