Home | Books By Year | Books from 1891


The Five Younger Gallants

Buy The Five Younger Gallants now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the book. And once you've experienced the book, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article


{{Infobox book

|name=The Five Younger Gallants

|author=unknown, allegedly Shi Yukun

|title_orig=The Five Younger Gallants

|country=Qing dynasty

|language=Written Chinese

|set_in=11th century (Song dynasty)

|genre=Wuxia fiction

|published=1890

|publisher=Wenguang lou (Beijing)

|media_type=Print

|preceded_by=The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants' (1879)

|followed_by=A Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants '(1891)'

}}

'The Five Younger Gallants' () is an 1890 Chinese novel and the best known sequel to the hugely popular 1879 novel 'The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants' (republished as 'The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants' in 1889). It is followed a year later by 'Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants' (). Both sequels were published by Shi Duo () who owned the Beijing publisher Wenguang lou (). The editor was a "Captivated-Wind Daoist" (). It's unknown whether he was the same person as "Captivated Daoist" (), an editor of the 1879 novel.

All three novels claim authorship by the famed storyteller Shi Yukun. During the last decade of the 19th century, the first sequel was reprinted 9 times, 7 in Shanghai and 1 each in Beijing and Chongqing.

Authorship controversy



While scholars generally agree that Shi Yukun was the genius behind the original novel (even though he most likely died before 1879), how much he contributed to 'The Five Younger Gallants' and its sequel, if at all, is unknown. The 1879 novel (which was published by another Beijing publisher, the Juzhen tang) does not complete its tale by the final chapter, and readers are told to wait for 'The Five Younger Gallants'. However, none of the "previewed" plotlines at the end of the original was actually found in the sequel. The editors did not deny that the two novels had different origins: According to Shi Duo's preface, his unnamed friend who was an acquaintance with an unnamed disciple of Shi Yukun brought him the original draft by Shi Yukun, with "over three hundred chapters, was bound in seventy or eighty volumes, contained over three thousand episodes in three major parts", which he acquired "without begrudging the great cost". "Capitvated-Wind Daoist" in his preface hinted that the 1879 novel was not authentic as it was noticeably different from the "original draft" he received.

In 'A Brief History of Chinese Fiction', Lu Xun wrote (as translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang):

One of the prefaces, dated "the first month of winter of 1890", suggestively includes the name Boyin (), Pan Zuyin's courtesy name, but as Pan died on December 11, 1890, it was unlikely his work.

The Five Younger Gallants



*'Ai Hu' (), nicknamed "Little Hero". He is actually a main character in the later chapters of the original.

*'Lu Zhen' (), Lu Fang's son, nicknamed "Powder-Faced Zidu" (). He appears briefly in the original.

*'Han Tianjin' (), Han Zhang's adopted son, nicknamed "Thunderbolt Devil" ().

*'Xu Liang' (), Xu Qing's son, nicknamed "Goose from Shanxi" () and "White Eyebrows" ().

*'Bai Yunsheng' (), Bai Yutang's nephew, nicknamed "Jade-Faced Zhuan Zhu" ().

actors enact a scene from Ch. 9: Mao Gaga (, left) accidentally tells Lu Fang about Bai Yutang's tragic death. From a performance in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, 20 December 2014.

Film and TV adaptations



Film

*'Breaking Through the Bronze Net' (), a 1939 Hong Kong film.

*'Triple Flirtation of the White Chrysanthemum' (), a 1939 Hong Kong film.

*'The Five Swordsmen's Nocturnal Tryst' (), a 1940 Hong Kong film.

*'The Junior Hero Ngai Fu' (), a 1949 Hong Kong film.

*'Solving the Copper-Netted Trap' (), a 1950 Hong Kong film.

*'The Three Battles Between White Eye-Brows and White Chrysanthemum' (), a 1950 Hong Kong film.

*'Five Little Heroes' (), a 1951 Hong Kong film.

*'Shattering the Copper Net Array' (), a 1959 Hong Kong film.

*'The Magnificent Five' (), a 1968 Hong Kong film.

*'Flying Thief, White Flower' (), a 1969 Hong Kong film.

In addition, Bai Yunsheng appears in the 1970 Hong Kong film 'The Winged Tiger'.

TV

*'The Five Younger Gallants' (), a 1977 Hong Kong TV series.

*'The Five Tiger Generals' (), a 1980 Taiwanese TV series.

*'The Magnificent Five' (), a 1987 Hong Kong TV series.

*'The White-Eyebrowed Hero' (), a 1994 Chinese TV series.

*'Chinese Folk Tales' (), a 1996 Taiwanese TV series, Episode "Ai Hu Solicits a Bride" ().

References



*

*

*

*

Category:1890 novels

Category:1891 novels

Category:Wuxia novels

Category:Novels set in the 11th century

Category:Qing dynasty novels

Category:Novels set in the Northern Song

Category:19th-century Chinese novels

Category:Chinese novels adapted into films

Category:Chinese novels adapted into television series

Category:Sequel novels

Category:Chinese comedy novels

Buy The Five Younger Gallants now from Amazon

<-- Return to books from 1891



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1110521420.