Jin Yong has written many wuxia novels, some which I think are crap and some which I enjoyed very much. 射雕英雄传 The Legend of the Conder Heroes is part of the latter. It is the first story to a 3 part series. Here, the main characters are 郭靖 Guo Jing, 黄容 Huang Rong, 杨康 Yang Kang etc, whereas the next story is about their children with many characters overlaping. As with most wuxia plotlines, the story is about the greats of martial arts, how some want to rein over the rest and be the best, how everyone tries to find a long lost martial art book, different sects in society befriending and making enemies out of one another. There will always be some sort of revenge going on, stupid really but that's human nature and so the revenge is neverending. And then there's the chivalry and loyalty that makes a real hero, friendships and love, meetings and partings. Many people will die in the process, both the bad and the good. Throughout the story, we can see, what was, will never be again.
( Yaay for a mini-picspam of the series and the actors and actresses: )
This is the 4th adaptation of the book. Hence, inevitably, comparisions are constantly being made between the various versions. Go to any chinese site discussing this new series and you'll see posts condeming the adaptation. Fortunately for me, I wasn't even born when the first adaptation came out in 1984. And I hated the most recent 2002(?) version with 周讯 Zhou Xun & 李亚鹏 Li Ya Peng (who is 王菲 Faye Wong's husband). So I have no opinion. I'm liking the cast now and although they changed the plotline a lot, the characters have become more human, the bad guys are not so bad. Haven't watched this series to its entirety, mainly because I'm too lazy to constantly catch it every day at the same time for 50 episodes. But I've been enjoying the scenes. The book, I've read half of it a long time ago, but stopped because I'm a girl, and even if I enjoy the plot, I can't be bothered with the lengthy descriptions of the martial arts moves. I remember in junior school where the boys would read these books between classes.
What made me make such a long post about this series which I'm not actually following ardently, is that it has come a long way to being a finished product as it is now. Filming already began in 2006, when I was very interested to watch this adaptation, the sites I mentioned above have been kept in my favourites for these 2 years. Unfortunately, Hu Ge got into a very bad accident. One person in the car he was in died and he had to undergo long recuperation and many plastic surgeries. He was out of the industry for about a year. The producers and the rest of the cast could have given up on the project since it meant a lot of money lost to wait. But they stayed with it. Even Jin Yong extended the copyright agreement for them. Ariel Lin went on to film more taiwanese dramas in between which have become very popular now. But everyone came back together again to finish off what they had started. Especially Hu Ge who returned with more maturity than before.
Go to this post for the lyrics translation of the ending theme song 乌云然 And so the Dark Clouds, sang by 胡歌 Hu Ge himself.