WANDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE (UPDATES)

Just want to shed some light on where we are in the development process for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. 

The setting material is all basically done. There are a few corners to fill out, some final bits of research and clarification, but otherwise our setting material is ready to go. Now we need to get ready for the mapping phase and edits.

The mechanics are also basically ready to go and we are doing final tweaks to make sure everything works like we intended. The biggest thing is reviewing individual Kung Fu Techniques and creating new ones where we left obvious gaps. We anticipate people will make their own techniques as well, the system is meant to be flexible, but we want the book to have a solid compliment of martial arts abilities out of the gate. 

I am working on the sample adventure and GM section. These are also pretty much done, but I need to revise and refine them after some further play testing. The GM section is more important than in our previous games because it contains a lot of unique mechanical tools for the genre. 

I will give further updates as this progresses. 

THE SECRET OF JE VALLEY PART III

This campaign is set ten years after a previous set of adventures (HERE). 


Characters:
Xue Lingsu (Purple Cavern Sect)
Kang Xi (Affiliated with Mr. Red Claw)
Zhi Zhu (No Sect)
Long Shu (Purple Cavern Sect)
Min (Purple Cavern Sect)
Rong (Tree-Dwelling Nun Sect)

Still in Water Village (Naam) from the previous session the party approached One-Armed Fiery Demon in the Inn of the Divine Scholar. There Zhi Zhu spoke with her. Because she is One-Armed Fiery Demon's informal disciple the two went outside to train where Zhi Zhu mentioned the Phoenix Crown of Bao. She learned that it was last seen at the Temple of Heiping. Before parting ways, One-Armed Fiery Demon asked Zhi Zhu to bring her the crown. 

After a discussion, the party decided to travel to Heiping Temple and see if they still had the crown. Long Shu and Kang Xi split from the group to investigate other matters near Chen. The rest of the party opted to take the river north to Rong-Yao, then take the road through the mountain pass and into Zun Valley. To do this they spoke with a tea merchant named Mr. Li who was willing to give them passage for 10 Taels. They talked him down to 5 in exchange for some minor services. Along the way, Rong climbed one of the masts and saw clusters of laborers through the trees in an area under threat from bandits. The merchant agreed to stop the boar so she could investigate. Going there she found a large Jade quarry being exploited by a local village. Because the quarry was between the areas controlled by Rong-Yao and The Heartless Bandits, she worried for their safety and the party talked the Merchant into leaving some guards behind to protect the people. He then said he would return to make a formal agreement that was mutually beneficial. 

In Rong-Yao, Xue Lingsu went to a Purple Cavern outpost and reported what he found. He was told to prevent the Phoenix Crown from falling into the hands of Lady White Blade. The outpost also sent Min, a junior disciple, to help Lingsu. 

Traveling along the road, the party eventually came to the Silk Tavern an inn fixed to a courtyard house with a walled gate. They went in and Lingsu ordered a very expensive dish called longevity duck. While eating three men (Proud Lion, Jade Crocodile and River Master Li)  all clearly martial experts, came in one after the other (separated by about five minutes each), sitting down at nearby tables and looking at the party. Then Dancing Hawk came in and sat down to speak with Lingsu. Though LIngsu explained he did not approve of Madame Hamaya's death and had no direct role, Dancing Hawk was too angry, pounding his fists on the table and demanding revenge. Lingsu managed to convince him to take the fight outside. 

As he walked out of the tavern, Dancing Hawk was grabbed by Zhi Zhu's Arms of Silk technique and battle between the three other experts and the party commenced. 

It was not an easy fight, but eventually the party disabled the four men. When the dust cleared the proprietor offered to put the men in a room so they could recover and Lingsu agreed. The next day Lingsu went to speak with Dancing Hawk finding him drugged and finding Proud Lion was missing). He exchanged a few words and the party departed. 

They made good time, traveling several days and eventually reaching the Zun Forest. There they were ambushed by a Zun Tribesmen led by a Demon Master, but they quickly dispatched them. They then heard screams to the north east and decided to deviate from their course to investigate. Eventually they find a train of Zun Horseman dragging a male villager alongside them. The party ambushed the riders and saved the man, who informed them that the Zun were abducting male villagers to sacrifice to their snake goddess of the salt wells. He had been on his way to Heiping Temple to ask for their protection for the villagers. 

To get to Heiping Temple they had to scale the Falls of Sura and did so without incident. Once there, they met with Queen Luzhi, the head of Heiping, and learned that the Phoenix Crown was stolen from the temple by Nergui, an adviser to the leader of the Kushen. While in audience with Luzhi, a Heiping nun informed her that the party had been followed by a group. She informed them and they went to investigate who it was at the Gold Fin Inn. At the inn they found Little Venom with Chief Frowning Eagle and a group of men who looked like farmers. Little Venom offered Lingsu a cup of wine but he suspected it was poisoned so refused (in conversation he was able to confirm she had poisoned the wine). She claimed to be looking for One-Armed Fiery Demon but offered help with the Phoenix Crown and dealing with Lady White Blade. But because he knew she had been hired by Headmaster Mu before (who was in contact with Mystic Sword Sect), Lingsu was suspicious of her intent. He lied about their efforts and returned to Heiping where Queen Luzhi let them leave through a secret exit. 

Reviewing gazetteers they had bought in Rong-Yao, the party learned there was a recent semi-permanent camp of Kushen in the Northern Banyan, so they went to find it. 

Arriving there they spied on the camp and saw that both Nergui and Princess Sarnai were present. The camp seemed to be based near a deposit of turquoise, which the Kushen value and their guards were extracting. That night Zhi Zhu snuck into Princess Sarnai's yurt where she found a lacquered cabinet. Opening it, she narrowly evaded a slew of poisoned needles then saw the crown inside. Taking the crown she fled and joined the party. 

This is where the session ended. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF GRUNT WORK

The most exciting part of adventure prep, for me at least, is that moment of inspiration where you are struck with a cool idea and think it through. It may be a sudden insight about where the campaign could go, or it could be just a really interesting concept for a dungeon, hook or NPC. It is one of the things that keeps you going and it is important. But I find I always have to remind myself about the importance of the less thrilling aspects of campaign design, the grunt work that is necessary if you are to be prepared at the table. 

Grunt work encompasses a lot of things: folder organization, tracking NPCs, managing XP, etc. It is the stuff you have to do to realize your cool ideas. Right now much of my grunt work is putting together NPC stat blocks for potential combats and setting up Kung Fu Techniques. It is very easy for me to put this stuff off, so I make a point of doing it first. 

Grunt work itself can be fun. I have to admit I enjoy putting together stat blocks and building up NPCs. Playing with the numbers and coming up with different Kung Fu Technique combos is the kind of fiddling I like to do as a GM. 

Right now I am making dozens of stat blocks, some general some specific, for an upcoming session. This is typically what they entail: 

MYSTIC SWORD JUNIOR DISCIPLE

Defenses: Hardiness 5, Evade 3, Parry 5, Stealth 6, Wits 6, Resolve 8

Key Skills: Grapple: 1d10, Throw: 0d10, Arm Strike: 1d10, Leg Strike: 0d10, Light Melee: 1d10, Medium Melee: 1d10, Heavy Melee: 0d10, Small Ranged: 0d10, Speed: 1d10, Muscle: 1d10, Detect: 1d10, Medicine: 1d10

Wounds: 1

Weapon: Dao

Key Techniques (Wiajia 2, Qingong 1, Neigong 1)

Blasting Blade: Melee against Evade, 20 foot cone, particles, 1d10 damage. Catharsis 2d10 damage.

For more proficient characters I may need a bigger list of Kung Fu Techniques. 

Research is also a kind of grunt work that needs doing if you are a GM. I like research but it can be tedious and when you it is a requirement for each small step of prep, it can become a pain. This is why I like having solid resources. In an upcoming session I need to have a better handle on Imperial Titles for our Song Dynasty-inspired setting. I found the Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China perfect for this task. Before I found this source, I was scouring a bunch of different books and websites with very little good information to show. I found a lot of clear information in broad stroke but nothing quite as detailed and ground-level view as this. 

Organization is another aspect of Grunt Work that I like to stay on top of. Usually when I start a new campaign my notes are quite disorganized because I have so few, I don't need to worry about finding anything. After the second or third session I need to consciously organize a binder and divide all my material logically. 

SCALE AND MAPPING IN SERTORIUS

The maps and setting material in Gamandria are intended as a starting point, but one thing I realized after its release is some folks think the details provided are supposed to be final. I want to go over the maps from the book and show some of the material from one of my own campaigns to explain what we intended with scale, details and mapping. 

Varian Sea Region Map

To the right is a regional map of Gamandria. This is the version available in the PDF. As you can see it is a whole section of the main continent and the purpose here is to give a broad view of the setting. This is not assumed to be everything there is. It is more like when you see a regional map of the Roman Empire or Imperial China, they usually don't include every city and site. If you ever have seen a map with every Roman city on it, you realize just how much blank space there is on such a map. 

So one of the aims here is to give the GM the parameters but allow them to flesh out the spaces in between when they prep their own campaigns. 

Gashta Forest Book Map

To give an example here is a close up of the Gashta Forest section of the above map. As you can see there are not a large number of details here. Some sections of the map are not this sparse, because they are more civilized with lots of important cities and sites. Gashta Forest is less so, but there are still numerous forts, villages and other details suggested to exist by the text of the setting entry. 

So here is how this gets fleshed out in my own campaign. This map was still in an early stage, I added more after taking this scan. So you can see how much more is assumed to be present in those hexes. 

Gashta Forest Campaign Map

The intent was to give GMs a good skeletal structure to work with but to allow them to flesh out details to taste. It is a broad stroke map and setting where we hope that GMs will be inspired to invent additional material. 

We certainly did go into some detail for key areas. Caelum for instance has several pages devoted to it. The purpose here was to provide examples. So while some entries have pages, others get little more than a line or two. There was a two-fold purpose to this. 

First we wanted to make the book easy to reference mid-game. So while the important places require you sit down and read several pages before the session, most of the individual cities and less significant places you can catch the main details with a quick glance. 

The second, which I've already mentioned was to give examples of different scales of detail so the GM could easily extrapolate. 

Had the book been one thousand pages instead of five hundred, we may have taken a different approach. But because space was also a consideration, if every section of the map resembled the campaign maps from our play tests and personal sessions, we would have needed hundreds of more entries in the Setting section.  

MAKING WUXIA ENCOUNTERS WORK (WANDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE)

I talked a little bit about this idea in another post (HERE). This time I will focus on making encounters work in a wuxia campaign (and in particular how they work in my Wandering Heroes of Ogre sessions). 

Though Wandering Heroes of Ogre still has fantasy elements, allowing for encounters with supernatural creatures like Fox Demons and Hopping Ghosts, it is basically rooted in human-driven wuxia, so most of the opponents the players face will be other people. If you don't mix things up, and if you don't consider how to make encounters stand out, they can easily become too familiar. I use a lot of random tables to make sure that doesn't happen, but some encounters I know will occur in advance (for example when the party incurs a grudge with a sect, it is likely the sect members will stage an ambush on their own terms). These observations apply to both situations, but particularly the latter, where you have more time to put a memorable encounter together before it occurs. 

Two things really need to stand out about your NPCs in an encounter with martial heroes: physical appearance and combat abilities. 

If the players are facing off against four different Kung Fu experts an easy way to make them memorable is to give each one a strong physical characteristic. This can be in the form of clothing (a turban, a large golden medallion, a fine silk robe, heavy black armor, etc) or appearance (an ugly face, a big beard, a bald head, an enormous and hefty body). 

Once combat begins, make sure you've selected appropriate combat abilities for them. In Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate this means giving them one or two solid Kung Fu techniques that reflect their character well and make a lasting impression. You will want other standard techniques also, but it is just really important to give them at least two signature moves. 

Another thing you need to know is personality. This is important because not all encounters end in combat and even those that do, often allow for some kind of social exchange. It is also important because you need to know how the NPC reacts to unexpected things, like offers of compromise by the player characters. 

I try to give NPCs in these kinds of situations one or two strong personality traits. The purpose here isn't to know their life story (though you may want that if the character survives the initial exchange) it is mainly to know how they conduct themselves in combat. Are they fair? Do they show mercy? Do they pay for the damage they cause? etc. 

Beyond the NPCs you also need to consider location. This is crucial in a wuxia campaign. This isn't just where the fight takes place, but how it occurs. Sometimes the characters just bump into the wrong people on the road and a battle ensues. However you want to make use of the setting and the participants to keep it memorable. If the attackers are planning to strike the party, they probably don't just walk up to them on the road (though that can certainly happen). At the very least they are going to go in with a plan. Let them use some tactics. Maybe they lure the players somewhere they know they'll have the advantage, or perhaps they approach the party as friends or allies to get them to lower their guard and strike at an appointed time. Make good use of inns, restaurants, festivals, temples, markets, bridge crossings, and other key locations. 

If it is an encounter of random chance, even just a passing each other on the road kind of exchange, give the opponents purpose and root them to something. Their not just passing the party for no reason, if they are on the road, they have a reason for being there. Maybe they are transporting a body from a rural village to a city (or vice versa) and in their grief they are itching for a fight. Perhaps they are looking for bandits who stole their father's prized golden sword (and the PCs happen to resemble them). Think of why they are there and if it is a hostile encounter, decide why they are hostile toward the party. 

I'll probably talk a little more about this after my next session (when I can discuss some concrete examples without giving away too much to my own players). 

WUXIA INSPIRATION: THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK SCORPION (THE BANQUET)

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate draws on a number of sources for inspiration. I watch a lot of wuxia movies and TV shows, and these have had a big influence not only on Ogre Gate, but on Sertorius and many of my d20 campaigns. I am hoping to share some of my favorite movies and shows in the genre here as we work on WHOG.

Note: I am writing these as a fan of the genre. I am not a movie expert or an expert in asian cinema. These are my own observations based on what I have learned by watching wuxia and kung fu movies, and by reading about them through interviews and books. But my knowledge is quite limited and I am an English speaker. So understand that my commentary comes from this perspective. 
Note: This review contains many spoilers.

The Legend of the Black Scorpion* was released in 2006 (also under the name The Banquet) and was directed by Feng Xiaogang. It stars Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers), Daniel Wu (Tai Chi Zero), Zhou Xun (Painted Skin, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate Inn and Cloud Atlas), and Ge You (Farewell My Concubine and Sacrifice). The action choreography was done by the great Yuen Woo-ping (Drunken Master, The Matrix, Kung Fu Hustle, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Fist of Legend and Kill Bill**). 

THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK SCORPION

The storyline for Legend of the Black Scorpion is loosely based on Hamlet. It is set at the end of the Tang Dynasty on the eve of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. 

It begins with a narration that leads into a gorgeous musical pantomime scene in a rural theater amid the wilderness. There we meet the chief protagonist, Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu), who has retreated from the world to learn acting and poetry after a losing his love, Little Wan (Zhang Ziyi), when she marries his father, the emperor. The narration informs us that the emperor has just died and his position usurped by prince Wu Luan's uncle Li. Emperor Li (Ge You) marries Empress Wan (formerly Little Wan) to secure his position and dispatches a group of assassins to the the theater to kill his nephew. 

This opening sequence sets the tone for the rest of the film. It alternates between the languid and the abrupt, as the crude and black-armored assassins descend on the ethereal actors who dress in white gowns and masks. One by one they brutally murder the actors, seemingly trying to find the crown Prince. A few of the actors prove difficult to kill, taking out several assassins and on the verge of escape before being impaled or beheaded. This has all the flowing and stylistic choreography you expect from a great wuxia scene but it makes a point of reminding you that blades are designed to cut flesh and stop life. You find yourself getting lost in the beauty of the movement, only to have the spell broken by the crashing reality of dripping blood and snapping bone. The shots don't just show you what happens, they explain what it means to be cut and bleeding. 

We are led to believe that Prince Wu Luan dies a few times before we find him hiding below the waters of a nearby river. The film then cuts back to the palace where Emperor Li is trying to seduce Empress Wan. She agrees to consummate their relationship when the emperor agrees not to harm the prince. She also gains the Emperor's trust by leading him to believe he is a greater lover than his brother (something he seems particularly keen on establishing). 

Zhang Ziyi as Empress Wan
Ge You as Emperor Li

Prince Wu Luan returns to the capital and appears in Empress Wan's room wearing his pantomime mask. He has with him his Yue Maiden Sword and a scroll containing a musical verse. He and the Empress spar and she expresses her disappointment that he has acted to take the throne for himself. He then shows her the verse which is about loneliness and loss of love. 

Empress Wu goes to visit Qing (Zhou Xun), her lady in waiting and the daughter of Minister Yin. Qing had been engaged to the prince and the two discuss his return to the city, with the Empress' jealousy becoming clear. 

The films develops into an involved political drama filled with chess-like moves between the different characters (mainly this is a game between the Emperor and the Empress). We see one particularly brutal execution of a governor who tries to turn the court against the new Emperor in favor of Empress Wan by indirectly calling him a usurper. This execution very much encapsulates the tone of the film, where it is violence beautifully displayed mindful of its consequences. 

Eventually Prince Wu Luan learns that his father was poisoned by his uncle and at the Empress' coronation he puts on a play illustrating how the deed was done. In an effort to eliminate his nephew as a threat, the Emperor says he is impressed with the performance and feels it is time for him to take on more responsibilities, so he sends him to be the ambassador to the Khitans. In reality this is a hostage exchange with each side giving a prince to the other. However the Emperor knows that the Khitans have sent him a nameless beggar and plans to have Wu Luan killed before he reaches his destination. 

The Empress takes Minister Yin's daughter Qing and uses her to convince the son (who is a general) to save Wu Luan and help fake his death. This effectively forces them to aid her in a a plot to kill the emperor (because they are her accomplices in the deceit). 

Upon hearing news of Wu Luan's death, the emperor says he will hold a banquet the following day. His prime minister informs him the day is inauspicious but the emperor insists. 

At the banquet the Empress attempts to poison the Emperor by lacing her own cup and giving him a toast. However she is interrupted by Qing who, believing Wu Luan is dead, offers to give a dance performance in the prince's honor. The emperor seems touched by the gesture and offers her to drink from his toasting cup, which she accepts. After performing the dance, she falls to the ground and dies (from the Emperor's poisoned cup), with all knowing the Empress has just attempted to kill the Emperor. 

Zhou Xun as Qing about to perform a dance

In the chaos, Wu Luan returns and says he wants revenge for his father. Initially the king protects himself with his bodyguards, but when the prince says he wants a duel and doesn't want to kill any innocents, he lets him through and willingly drinks from the poison cup on his own. 

The Empress approaches Wu Luan and tries to declare him the new ruler, but he is reluctant. 

Qing's brother, who is enraged over her death flies over the crowd with a knife and attempts to stab the Empress. Prince Wu Luan grabs the blade with his hand to stop the attack but Qing's brother says it is poisoned. The Empress then stabs the brother in the throat and Wu Luan dies. 

Daniel Wu as Prince Wu Luan

After the coronation we see Empress Wan clutching a red sheet and reflecting on her rise to power. She remembers that she used to be called Little Wan and asks how she forget. The Yue Maiden sword flies into her back and through her heart. She clutches at it as someone else pulls it from he body. We never see the attacker but we see the look of confused recognition on her face before she dies. 

BONE SNAPPING BEAUTY

Surprisingly, when I first watched this it took me a while to realize it was essentially Hamlet. Once I did of course, I pretty much knew everyone's fate. I found the familiarity of the storyline refreshing because normally wuxia films are taken from sources not available in English or (occasionally) available in translation. 

The Legend of the Black Scorpion is interesting, it blends imperial drama with wuxia and achieves a nice balance of ruthless grittiness and poetic swordplay. That may sound like a natural fit but I don't think I have seen many movies that blur the line so effortlessly between blunt stabbing violence and the more dreamlike and flowing fight choreography you see in movies like Hero. There was a sharp internal contrast where one moment you have a hero effortlessly dodging dozens of sword strikes in soundless steps, only to have him impaled. This film is both soft and sharp. Sometimes the action is gentle and serene, other times you can hear the harsh crunch of bone and rasping gurgle of blood. I found this quite striking. 

While the movie isn't packed with fights, it has plenty given the story. Each one is riveting in its own way and multi-layered. You are not just getting action in these sequences, you are getting little stories. 

The movie is a bit graphic at times. There are beheadings, impalements, and many shots intended to make the viewer cringe. There is also a somewhat confusing rape scene. I didn't think I could explain it adequately in the overview, but I mention it here because it may trouble some viewers if the decide to watch The Legend of the Black Scorpion. 

The Pantomime Theater

The acting is marvelous and the use of the Hamlet storyline works very well. Ge You is highly effective as the scheming and lusty emperor, while Zhang Ziyu brings the complicated character of Empress Wan/Little Wan to life. Zhou Xun and Daniel Wu give great performances also. Xun gets a lot less screen time than the main actors but stands out as always. Wu handles the fight choreography smoothly and plays a convincing lead. 

In terms of gaming there may be something her for more political campaigns. It really shows the chess-like nature of dialogue in the imperial court and a GM could make good use of that. Other than that it isn't quite as good in terms of gaming inspiration, though the forest theater at the beginning of the movie might prove an interesting locale. 

I highly recommend this movie for anyone likes wuxia. I was struggling to find the right words to describe the action, but it really is some of the more compelling stuff I've seen. 


*The Chinese Title is Ye Yan
** Additional fight choreography credits also include Fearless, The Grandmaster, Forbidden Kingdom and many more. 

IN DEFENSE OF THE CLASSICS (WUXIA INSPIRATION)

I've been making a point of watching a wide range of wuxia movies while we work on Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, spanning decades from roughly 1966 to the present. While I have to admit I've long had a soft spot for older martial arts films, one thing that really stands out to me now is the quality of some of these earlier efforts. Even ones I may not personally care for, I can see the importance of. 

Hsu Feng in A Touch of Zen

A lot of people are hesitant to watch these older movies, and I think that is understandable. The image quality is often poor because they were not well preserved and the pacing and editing are very different from what modern martial arts audiences are used to. The last two in particular are quite a hurdle for people. Modern editing techniques enhance fight choreography a lot, and fight choreography itself has made enormous leaps. But like anything else, there is a trade off, and one of the trade offs of slick editing, is you can't always see everything the actor is doing. I am not going to lie, a 1960s Shaw Brothers movie does not look like a Jet Li action film. For one thing, the swordplay is less stylized, though often athletic. But that doesn't mean you should dismiss the earlier films. In fact if you go back and watch them, you'll find it enriches your viewing of more current movies because there are so many call backs to what came before. 

Cheng Pei Pei in Come Drink With Me

Yes earlier movies can be grainy at times, but many of them have been remastered or were well preserved. The ones from the late 60s and 70s that were filmed on sets seem to hold up well for some reason. The Dragon Dynasty DVD series is a great source for remastered classic martial arts movies. 

Films from the 60s and 70s may also seem slower at first. We are accustomed to very efficient editing that removes extraneous material. But one thing you find when you go back and look at older movies (and this applies to all movies, not just wuxia) is the extraneous is rather subjective. If you look at dialogue for example, it has gone through peaks and valleys over the years in terms of efficiency. There is such a thing as too much editing. You find this in music as well. We have gone through periods filled with baroque style frills and technique, but then often experienced minimalist reactions. That doesn't mean the best songs are always simple. It doesn't mean rock music hit its apex in the 90s. I would argue it is important to have a range of approaches and that efficiency is not always a virtue. 

Jimmy Wang in The One-Armed Swordsman

With martial arts movies the same thing applies. I love modern wuxia, and I really love stuff from the 90s, but I also can enjoy the more relaxed pace of an old Golden Harvest or Shaw Brothers flick. If you are accustomed to the new stuff, yes the change is a bit alarming. It is similar to going from a busy life in the city to a vacation cabin in the woods. The pace is maddening at first because your attention span is accustomed to everything moving quickly, but you adapt within a matter of days to the new pace of life. 

One of the advantages of films like King Hu's Come Drink With Me (which at the time introduced a lot of newer and faster editing techniques) is it takes the time to build the story. It helps create atmosphere and establish characters. Another King Hu movie, A Touch of Zen, simply wouldn't work if it picked up the pace. 

I think the biggest thing for most people though is the fight choreography and editing. This is something where I do think there have been many advances. It is hard to deny that a movie like The New Dragon Gate Inn or House of Flying Daggers isn't visually spell-binding in no small part because of the fantastic editing techniques and stylized fight choreography. You will get a lot less of that in an older wuxia movie, but you will still get plenty to feast your eyes upon if you can adjust to the difference. One thing I do when I view the older movies is concentrate more on things like footwork. Lady Hermit is a good example of this, where the movement is captivating and dance-like, but still different from the intensity of stuff that you see today. 

Lily Ho and Betty Pei Ti in
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan

The other nice thing about these older films, which I've already mentioned, is you can see the actor's entire body and you often get a much better view of what all the participants are doing. That does mean you also get a better view when performances lull or dip, so it isn't without a downside. However I do appreciate being able to see things clearly and not lose sight of what is going on as the action blazes. 

I should point out that the earlier movies (especially before the 70s) have much different fight choreography. It often looks more swashbuckling in nature, and while I find it entertaining, it is worth mentioning so folks are not surprised. 

None of this is to diminish the value of more recent movies. I personally tend to alternate between the two. The point I am trying to make is it is a matter of adjusting to a different style and once you do, you will find it enriches your viewing of modern movies. One strong example of this is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If you liked that, you'll certainly enjoy watching many of the earlier movies that it made reference to. In many ways it is a highlight reel of the best of wuxia. It is no coincidence that Cheng Pei-Pei makes an appearance in the movie. There are several allusions to films she herself stared in (notably Come Drink with Me but other ones as well like The Jade Raksha and Dragon Swamp).