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Blood And Plum Blossoms
''Blood and Plum Blossoms'' () is a short story by Chinese writer Yu Hua, first published in 1989, that is an unconventional parody of the classic martial arts novel. Ruan Jinwu was killed 15 years before the main story by persons unknown. His wife charges their son, Ruan Haikuo, with the task of taking revenge on his murderers. The plot of the story revolves around his quest to take revenge. Characters *Ruan Jinwu – The greatest swordsman of his generation, Ruan Haikuo's father, and the first named owner of the Plum Blossom Sword. *Ruan Haikuo – Ruan Jinwu's son and the protagonist. He is not a swordsman, but is presented with the Plum Blossom Sword by his mother at the age of twenty and tasked with hunting down & killing his father's murderers. *Master Blue Cloud – One of the two people Ruan Haikuo's mother tells him will probably know who killed his father. He was once an active martial artist but has since retired and become a recluse, meditating most of the time. *Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yu Hua
Yu Hua (; born April 3, 1960, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province) is a Chinese author. Shortly after his debut as a fiction writer in 1983, his first breakthrough came in 1987, when he released the short story '' On the Road at Age Eighteen''. Yu Hua was regarded as a promising avant-garde or post-New Wave writer.Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, “One Kind of Chinese Reality: Reading Yu Hua. ”Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, Vol. 18 (Dec., 1996), pp. 129- 143. Many critics also regard him as a champion for Chinese meta-fictional or postmodernist writing. His novels ''To Live'' (1993) and ''Chronicle of a Blood Merchant'' (1995) were widely acclaimed. "By the time I began to read him, he had two late 20th-century novels under his belt that had each earned critical raves. The first of these, To Live, was made into an acclaimed film directed by Zhang Yimou, while the second, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, was hailed by many as one of the best novels published in China in the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a story contains a subplot, or is a narrative made up of several stories, then each subplot may have its own protagonist. The protagonist is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist. The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. Etymology The term ''protagonist'' comes , combined of (, 'first') and (, 'actor, competitor'), which stems from (, 'contest') via (, 'I contend for a prize'). Ancient Greece The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece. At first, dramatic pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jianghu
''Jianghu'' () is a term that generally refers to the milieu, environment, or sub-community in which many Chinese wuxia stories are set. The term is used flexibly, and can be used to describe a fictionalized version of Historical China (usually using loose influences from across the ~1000 BCE–280 AD period); a setting of feuding martial arts clans and the people of that community; a secret and possibly criminal underworld; a general sense of the "mythic world" where fantastical stories happen; or some combination thereof. Background In modern Chinese culture, ''jianghu'' is commonly accepted as an alternative universe coexisting with the actual historical one in which the context of the wuxia genre was set. Unlike the normal world, in the ''jianghu'' ''xia'' (wanderers, knight-errants) are free to act on their own initiative, including with violence, to punish evil and foes, and to reward goodness and allies. While the term literally means "rivers and lakes", it is broad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Love
''Classical Love'' () is a short story by Chinese writer Yu Hua that is an unconventional parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ... of the classic scholar and beautiful maiden novel style. References * Hua, Yu. Translated by Andrew F. Jones. ''The Past and the Punishments''. Honolulu, USA: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. pp. 12–61. Short stories by Yu Hua {{story-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
