A scenes from New Dragon Gate Inn.

Oscar success

Wang Yang, a teacher from the acting department at the Shanghai Theater Academy told the Global Times that, "China has long history of wuxia movies stretching back to the early part of the 20th century. And we also have the tradition of acrobatic fighting in traditional Chinese operas. However, this genre has been little seen since the genre of 'modern' plays was imported from the West in the 19th century. Therefore, for me a wuxia play is like a combination of both concepts: Chinese martial arts and the modern play. Of course, the first step is to adapt the classics we already have."

Wang directed the recent performance of New Dragon Gate Inn, with the story adapted from a 1992 Hong Kong wuxia film directed by Raymond Lee and produced by Tsui Hark.

The movie version was shot as a standard wuxia action movie with fast-paced action including martial arts, sword fighting and black comedy. The story takes place during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and is set in an isolated inn in a desertified area near the Yumen Pass in today's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"This film has always been a classic among wuxia movie fans," said Wang. "To be honest, as a theater director, what I wanted to do in the play was not to show existing fight scenes, but to create a kind of artistic environment and a spiritual concept about wuxia on the stage," Wang said.

Wang was also keen to get around the limitations of a regular stage play. "In the original movie, there are lots of brilliant martial arts scenes and fighting sequences, but everyone knows that most of these effects are highly technical, whether physical or cinematographic, and this is very difficult to show on the stage," said Wang.

The production as it was staged contains very little real kung fu.

"The actors are not professional martial arts performers and what we are doing is not a martial arts performance. However, as a stage performance, the advantage of a play is that we have direct communication with the audience. Even when we do a martial arts sequence that may not be technically impressive, the audience can see the sweat and the effort involved."

The Deer and the Cauldron is a martial arts novel written by the celebrated writer Jin Yong in 1969. However, the book is not a typical wuxia novel as the hero, Wei Xiaobao, isn't an adept martial arts practitioner. Rather, he is an antihero who relies on his wit and cunning to evade trouble, as opposed to utilizing his fighting skills.

The novel has been televised on several occasions and was also turned into a big screen version starring Stephen Chow, one of China's most famous comic film actors.

However, they both agreed that as well as being a martial arts work, The Deer and the Cauldron also has comedic elements. "Therefore, we created a kind of comic wuxia play."

He told the Global Times that, in common with the film version, they tried to create some amusing fight scenes for the hero Wei Xiaobao.

"We used some mannequins in the fight scenes and at one point we tied an artificial wooden limb onto the leg of the hero for comic effect," He said.

"And sometimes, we had the actors carrying out their actions in actual slow motion, emulating what would happen in the movies."

Wang's next wuxia play is the adaptation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And for this production he wants actors to actually "fly" and fight with each other above the ground using techniques reminiscent of the famous film version.