2001 - The Legend of Condor Hero - KayLing88 Entertainment Review

The Legend of Condor Hero is a Japanese / Chinese anime adaptation of The Return of the Condor Heroes, a wuxia novel by Louis Cha.

Plot

The Legend of Condor Hero is set in the 13th century at the time of the Mongol invasion of China. Nearly a decade after the end of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, the Mongols have now conquered the Jin Dynasty and are now setting their sights towards the Southern Song Dynasty.

The citizens of Southern Song, many of them great martial artists of the Central Plains, band together to defend their country from the onset of the Mongol horde. The story culminates in the historic Battle of Xiangyang, which was a critical battle that led to the fall of China to the Mongols. The story revolves around the young martial arts fighter Yang Guo (Youka), who falls in love with his martial arts master, Xiaolongnü (Shouryuujo), and the trials and tribulations he goes through while searching for his love in war-torn China.

Publication Information

Title : The Legend of Condor Hero (Animated)
Japanese : コンドルヒーロー
Chinese : 神鵰俠侶
Wuxia novel by : Louis Cha
Genre : Anime and Manga, Martial arts, Romance
Studio : Nippon Animation, Jade Animation
Network : BS Fuji
Original run : October 11, 2001 – April 28, 2002
Episodes : 78

As compared to TVB's prior live action adaptations, the animated version cut out much of the side stories, and changed some of the plots to make the stories to fit into the 30-minute 26 episode blocks, as opposed to the 1-hour 20 episode blocks used in most TVB dramas. As a result, some do not regard it as a canonical adaptation.

Theme songs

Opening theme song (Japanese version): Yuu performed by NoR
Opening theme song (Chinese version): True Love is Bitter performed by Andy Lau
Ending theme song: Blása performed by Yae

Production

After Nippon Animation had obtained the rights of the series, it produced the animation version with association with Jade Animation (TVB's animation studio), and decided to split the series into 3 parts. To reduce production cost, Nippon Animation did the production (including scripting, design) for the first series (episodes 1-26), with the Jade Animation's Shenzhen studio performing post-production (including background, digitization).

Beginning with second series, Jade Animation took over the entire production, with Nippon Animation's role reduced to character design for new characters debuted in the later series.

Video releases

Taiseng Entertainment released the first season for English-speaking audiences. Since the show was much more popular in Chinese-speaking nations than in Japan, the second season was not produced in Japanese like the first season, but in Cantonese and Mandarin. VCD video of the series was released by Warner Bros. in Hong Kong.

List of episodes

There are 78 episodes released of The Legend of Condor Hero. Season I is composed of two parts—episodes 1–12 and episodes 13–26. Season II takes after the end of Season I, starting from episode 27 to 52. Season III broadcast began in Taiwan and Canada in 2008. The Japanese version was only made for the first series. In all three series, Taiseng released the respective DVDs months before respective television broadcasts.

Season I