Photo: Courtesy of Tencent Video

Chinese martial arts TV series The Legend of Heroes, or Jin Yong's Marital Arts World, has debuted on various platforms including Netflix and YouTube, igniting the enthusiasm of overseas audiences for wuxia, or martial arts. 

The new series, available on Chinese streaming giant Tencent Video, features various heroes and warriors adapted from the works of Chinese martial arts literature great Louis Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong. 

The first part of the series follows the story of Guo Jing, who grows into a great hero while adventuring around the wuxia world. As a leading figure in contemporary martial arts novels, Jin Yong used his popular works to depict the wonders of the wuxia world, which have become treasured memories of generations of Chinese people.

Because of its rich cultural heritage and unique charm of Chinese martial arts, Jin Yong's wuxia literature has gained fans all over the world. The Legend of Heroes creates a universe of heroes from Jin's classics, breaks out of the creative framework of traditional martial arts themes while retaining the essence of the original works, and outlines a "new world of martial arts" with new narrative rhythm, story style, and characterization, presenting a refreshing feel to audiences.

Director Yang Lei, who achieved great success with the TV version of The Three-Body Problem, said in an interview that the key to the new series was using cutting-edge creative ideas to retell the classic stories. The work faithfully restores the main story of the books but innovates by expanding upon the side stories. 

"By creating a Jin Yong Universe, we strive to bring something new to the Jin Yong stories that are familiar to generations of audiences," he said.

Such creative approaches have become especially important as a means to attract new audiences with familiar stories. 

"My most favorite genre, my one true love has always been wuxia, so it's wonderful to see another Jin Yong drama. Loving its fast pace, no-nonsense approach and fight scenes so far," wrote one user on Reddit. 

"My favorite part has always been piecing all the names and bits of background together to get a bigger picture, and I don't feel overwhelmed by what has been revealed in these first few episodes. I think the connections and relationships were explained well enough," said one user on the site My Drama List who claimed that "I have neither read the novels this is based on, nor have I watched any of the previous adaptations."

From such views, it is not difficult to discover that the spirit of wuxia still lingers as Jin Yong's works are classics full of the essence of chivalrous heroes. 

Besides, the series is also being aired on Rakuten Viki, CNTV in South Korea, Starhub in Singapore, Astro in Malaysia, True in Thailand and more.