Swordsman (TV series)

Linghu Chong, a swordsman of the Mount Hua School, is open-minded and unrestrained by nature. At the start, his swordsmanship was ordinary. Later, he met Feng Qingyang, a swordmaster who taught him the "Nine Swords of Dugu", and learnt the essence of the swordsmanship of the Five Mountain Sword Schools Alliance. This aroused the suspicion of his master Yue Buqun, who expelled him from the Mount Hua School. Yue Buqun appears to be a morally upright swordsman, but he is secretly a scheming hypocrite. In order to obtain the highly coveted Sunflower Manual, he designed a plan to make the martial arts schools turn against each other, but in the end, he killed himself. Linghu Chong had been in love with Yue Buqun's daughter Yue Lingshan since childhood, but she eventually married Lin Pingzhi. Later, Linghu Chong met Ren Yingying, the daughter of the Sun Moon Holy Cult's leader Ren Woxing, and the two had similar interests. After several life and death misunderstandings, they realised that they loved each other deeply, but Ren Yingying had been poisoned and was dying. After experiencing the hegemony disputes in the jianghu, Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying finally appreciated each other and got married.

In the series, Shaolin Monastery (or Shaolin School) is renamed Lingjiu Monastery ('Divine Eagle Monastery' (靈鷲寺)). The change is believed to be because the producers wanted to avoid trademark infringement, since Shaolin Monastery has officially registered "Shaolin" as a trademark and has been involved in lawsuits with commercial companies over the use of "Shaolin" as a brand name or trademark.^[2][3]

Prior to its original broadcast, Swordsman received popular attention for its teen idol cast in comparison with older adaptations of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, and for major amendments made to the original story.^[4] Particular attention was shed on Joe Chen's casting as Dongfang Bubai, a minor antagonist in the novel whose role was substantially rewritten in this series to portray him/her as one of two female protagonists alongside Yuan Shanshan's character, Ren Yingying.

During and following its broadcast, the series received mixed and largely polarised reviews. The series was both praised and criticised for its unfaithfulness to the novel, although producer Yu Zheng asserted that it is one of the 'most faithful' adaptations of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. Nevertheless, the series maintained high ratings throughout its run. The new characterisation of Dongfang Bubai sparked controversy, even though Joe Chen's performance as a complex character was praised, and Dongfang Bubai became a feminist pop icon. Chen Xiao's portrayal of Lin Pingzhi was also critically acclaimed, but Yuan Shanshan's Ren Yingying was critically dismissed as a miscast of the original character in the novel. Attention was directed towards the prominence of romantic plotlines and subplots in the series which were similarly met with mixed reviews. However, new romantic pairings among the cast as follows were well received by younger audiences: Wallace Huo's Linghu Chong and Joe Chen's Dongfang Bubai; Han Dong's Tian Boguang and Deng Sha's Yilin; Chen Xiao's Lin Pingzhi and Yang Rong's Yue Lingshan; Lü Jiarong's Lan Fenghuang and Han Dong's Tian Boguang.^[5]