“He had little time for magic swords or charmed arrows, since any everyday weapon could become ‘magical’ in the hands the right martial artist. Indeed, as he noted, the higher echelons of martial artists should have no need for weapons at all, since they had become so at-one with the universe that they could draw upon the qi around them to fashion their bodies into deadly weapons. Perhaps out of a sense of deliberate contrariness, he even bucked against the trend for morose, troubled knights errant, pushing instead for libertine, sensual ‘happy heroes,’ an idea which would itself form the basis of his novel of the same name, inspired in part by John Steinbeck’s novel Tortilla Flat (1935).”

Out today from Arrow, the majestic Shawscope #3 box set, which includes my long article on the writer Gu Long, and my feature-length commentary track on the Song dynasty historical epic 14 Amazons (1972).