Wang Baoxiang (; 190912 February 1977)
In the West he is best known for his series of interlinked novels, the Crane-Iron Series, which includes Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The novel has been adapted to film and television several times, most notably the award-winning film adaptation of the same name directed by Ang Lee.
Early life
Wang was born in 1909 in
Beijing to a poor family of Bannerman background. (His ancestors were ethnic
Han Chinese adopted into the
Manchu people Eight Banners.)
[《金剛玉寶劍》總序，北岳文藝出版社，2017, p. 6: "王氏當屬編入滿洲鑲黃旗的"漢姓人"...滿人把他們視為同族。"] He worked as an editor for a newspaper agency, and as a clerk for a merchant association before becoming a writer. He is reported to have been self-educated. However, he graduated high school in 1924, and worked infrequently as a teacher until he moved to Beijing in 1931.
He also worked as freelance editor and journalist.
He and Li Danquan were married in 1935.
Career
Wang wrote more than twenty novels from 1931 to 1949, though some sources attribute as many as fifty novels to him. Most of his earlier works were detective and
mystery fiction novels.
He began writing wuxia novels after moving to Qingdao, sometime before 1938. From 1939 to 1949, Wang produced as many as thirty-six wuxia novels.
Crane-Iron Series
Wang's most popular works are collectively referred to as the
Crane-Iron Series (), named after the first characters in the titles of the first and last installments in the series. The series' five novels chronicle the struggles of four generations of
youxia (), often translated as wandering heroes. Each novel contains elements which link it with the others.
Portions or possibly all of the novels may have been serialized.
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Crane Startles Kunlun (, serialized title 1940–1941)
-
Precious Sword, Golden Hairpin (, serialized title 1938–1939; collected edition 1939)
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Sword Force, Pearl Shine (, serialized titled 1939–1940; collected edition 1941)
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (, serialized title 1941–1942; collected edition 1948)
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Iron Knight, Silver Vase (, serialized title 1942–1944; collected edition 1948)
Crane Startles Kunlun was written third, after Sword Force, Pearl Shine, and serialized under the title Dancing Crane, Singing Luan (). The official website of actress Michelle Yeoh includes an English-language summary of the series.
Translations
The two first volumes were translated into French, and published by Calmann-Lévy. As of 2025, no official English language translations of his novels exist. However, there is a
manhua series of the same name (and a second, revised edition), created by
Andy Seto. The plot of the manhua departs substantially from the novels.
An unofficial English translation of Crane Startles Kunlun was released in November 2017 by Worlds in Translation. They started working on an unofficial translation for Precious Sword, Golden Hairpin in December 2017, though there hasn't been any updates since the third part of the third chapter was released in December 2019.
Adaptations
Ang Lee's 2000 film adaptation,
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, included elements from other books in the
Crane series, and also took liberties with the novel it was based on. The changes emphasized the romantic relationships between the protagonists from the novel. The film was also pitched as a martial-arts adaptation of
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.
In 2013, The Weinstein Company announced an English-language adaptation of Iron Knight, Silver Vase was in development, with Ronny Yu attached to direct.
Later life and death
After the Chinese Civil War, Wang was assigned to work as a school teacher by Communist leaders, who labelled him an "old literati". He was forbidden from producing new works. Following his retirement, possibly around 1966, he was labelled a "reactionary literati", thus the Communist Party punitively sentenced him to farm labor.
He died from an unknown illness on 12 February 1977.
In 1999, Wang's widow Ms. Li Dan Quan met with Ang Lee and Michelle Yeoh during the production of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
See also
External links
