Introduction

Abstract

Along with the genre’s multifaceted development, it is striking that among these prominent martial arts pictures, from its experimental phase to its present blockbuster form, the artistic concerns of traditional theatre are ubiquitous in their musical codes. Indeed, in China, most early experiments with film were screen versions of excerpts of Chinese opera. Since they were silent, these productions could only suggest the visual impact of the operatic performance while being carried out in otherwise acoustic muteness. Eventually, the choice of opera as a subject matter would stimulate the initial experiments with recorded sound in film. Positioned at the centre of traditional theatre and Chinese martial arts film, the sound opens up a valuable interdisciplinary perspective in testifying to just how close and relevant to both media the interaction between theatre and film has been. I contend that this unique angle of research, affirming the role of music in justifying the inseparable relation between theatre and film, could then help us rethink Chinese martial arts cinema and consequently reassess the considerable body of scholarship devoted to it.