One of the oldest genres in Chinese literature, wǔxiá (武俠/武侠, literally "martial-arts chivalry" or "martial arts heroes", and pronounced roughly "woo-syah" in Mandarin) stories are tall tales of honorable warriors (俠/侠 xiá) fighting against evil, whether it be an individual villain, or a corrupt government. Notable for melodrama, spectacular swordplay, and high-flying martial arts where the laws of physics, like gravity, are more suggestions than solid rules.

Although some wuxia stories are set in modern times, or even the future, most take place in the "Martial Arts World" of jiānghú (江湖, literally "rivers and lakes") a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Imperial China.^note According to The Legend of the Condor Heroes English translator Anna Holmwood, the jianghu was named "for the symbolic landscape of rivers and lakes that is [the xia's] home". The jianghu is a "shared universe", populated by martial-artists and monks, wandering knights and beautiful princesses, thieves and beggars, priests and healers, merchants and craftsmen. The best wuxia writers draw a vivid picture of the intricate relationships of honour, loyalty, love and hate between individuals and between communities in this milieu. It is implicit that law and government are unjust, ineffective and/or corrupt, requiring the xia to settle differences by force moderated only by their chivalrous code, and often forcing them to live as outlaws despite their noble characters. In modern Chinese, perhaps as a result of these connotations of a separate world with its own rules, the term jianghu has taken on other meanings, including the underworld or criminal gangs.

A more romantic term known as wǔlín (武林, literally "Martial Forest") is used when one wants to talk specifically about the world of martial artists and warriors, divorced from the ugly connotations of criminality that jianghu has come to embody. Wulin is basically a majestic way of saying "the World of Warriors".

Modern works often incorporate outside themes and ideas, allowing the genre to develop, and in turn wǔxiá themes and visual styles have strongly influenced Western media, especially in cinema. In a similiar vein to J. R. R. Tolkien and High Fantasy, Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng proliferated the modern wuxia genre.

In recent years, another genre known as xiānxiá (仙俠/仙侠, "Immortal Hero") has developed, referred to on this wiki as the Spirit Cultivation Genre. This genre places more emphasis on Supernatural Martial Arts, and specifically on the practitioners becoming progressively stronger over time.

Compare Sword and Sorcery, High Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy, and Swashbuckler. The Japanese equivalent is Jidaigeki, particularly the chanbara Sub-Genre—interestingly, the term wuxia was originally a calque of the Japanese bukyo. In Japan, however, the term bukyo has since faded into obscurity. The closest American equivalent is The Western, especially regarding its hazy boundary with Weird West. For the 2011 movie titled Wu Xia, see Swordsmen.

Common tropes include:

• Academy of Evil: If the story leans heavily toward martial arts, expect one or more of these to exist in the setting.
• Action Girl: There are plenty of damsels in distress, but female martial-artists have a long history in the genre.
• Alas, Poor Villain: One of the side effects of having to put an end to a very powerful villain is the loss of a great talent in the world.
• Ambition is Evil: One of the stock aesops, especially in stories that deconstruct To Be a Master.
• Animal Stampede: Beast Tides, phenomenon where dangerous (maybe supernatural) animals breed out of control and overrun the land in cycles. It's just how things are in some wuxia worlds, always has been and always will be.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Wuxia is essentially the source-material for the unarmed combat monk trope, drawn from real-life Chinese monks who practiced martial arts.
• Battle Couple: In the world of wuxia where both the guys and the girls can kick ass, romances will often take this form.
• Blood from the Mouth: Indicates that someone has really, really overspent their chi.
• Byronic Hero: Some stories have "heroes" with barely-controlled vices. Expect them to kill people in a fit of rage, and then lament upon it when their clarity return. This usually exist in older works.
• Calling Your Attacks: Zig-zagged. Although bucketloads of fancy moves and techniques are described and named in wuxia genre, very few characters in literature actually shout them out during fights. Meanwhile, it's more common to do so in film and TV, as it saves time. The names of the moves are generally introduced in the following ways:
  By a bystander of a fight: Is that not the [insert move name] of the legends?
  By the teacher of that move: The one I just taught you is no other than the famed [insert move name].
  By the narrator themself: Little do they know that the move they faced is no other than the [insert move name].
• Cast from Hit Points/Cast from Lifespan: Some of the more exotic and dangerous techniques literally work like this, usually from requiring extreme amounts of qi, which is literally life force.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: The basis of many special powers and abilities is presented as long, arduous training, often from childhood.
• Chick Magnet: 99% of the male leads of these stories have plenty of female admirers and love-interests.
• Chop Sockey: This is a loaded and rather disrespectful term, but may apply in movies depending on the production values.
• Clothing Combat: The more fantasy-based wuxia are prone to having an Action Girl who whaps people with sleeves.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Any character with any loyalty at all can expect to be tested.
• Cool Old Guy/Cool Old Lady: Whether it is the old shīfu who teaches the heroes martial arts, or the venerable sage who administers the Secret Test of Character, the tradition of respect for age makes these standard character types.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Secret martial techniques often feature, sometimes simply as the powers of characters, sometimes as goals of quests, sources of jealousy, causes of rivalry, etc.
• Dark Action Girl: And it would be the challenge for the heroes to tame them. Don't expect them to surrender anything, though.
• The Dark Arts: Any respectable martial arts school will have a sub-style that its students aren't meant to learn, because it will lead them toward...
• Deceptive Disciple: The student who betrays their master (a very serious breach of filial piety in traditional Chinese belief), frequently becomes the Big Bad or at least The Dragon.
• Driven by Envy: Villains are often motivated by jealousy of heroes' success, favour shown them by masters, beautiful girls, etc.
• Energy Ball: Shooting these from the palm of one's hands was a fairly common power in the more fantasy-oriented wuxia tales. Being able to do so indicated either martial art mastery beyond the normal limits or knowing a supernatural martial art or both.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: And if you're in a fantasy story, expect him to be an Evil Sorcerer as well.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: From unassuming tavern owners and beggars to members of royal houses, old and disabled men to youthful maidens, monks from varying belief systems to soldiers of great empires, this is all over the place, though generally there's some narrative focus other than just the fighting. And if there's someone without martial arts skills, you can expect that they're probably a Badass Normal in one way or another.
• Evil Chancellor: The "good emperor, evil chancellor" trope appears again and again. It's a Chinese history thing.
• Evil Former Friend: Having one seems to be part of being a shīfu. Don't worry, even if you can't win against them, your disciple(s) will take care of the matter.
• Flight: One of the most common powers in the genre, being able to "fly" (more like a highly agile glide) is a sign of a martial artist's incredible skill as they temporarily reduce their weight to a fraction and add a bit of ki propulsion.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Expect heroes and villains to be be obsessed with defeating each other, to the point that it becomes the raison d'etre of their life.
• Genre Turning Point:
  • In film, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983, Tsui Hark) was the first movie to combine Hong Kong action cinema with western special effects technology, resulting in visually-stunning displays of Supernatural Martial Arts.
  • Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sparked a wave of more arthouse-oriented wuxia.
• A God Am I: Some villains will behave like this. It's up to the hero(es) to correct them. Occasionally, someone actually is trying to become a god, or in any case immortal; you spend years studying if you do.
• Happily Married: Though it often does not last, leading to a Roaring Rampage of Revenge... unless they're a Battle Couple. Not a guarantee, however.
• Heir to the Dojo: Given the nature of martial art schools in this genre, there tend to be certain characters who are chosen by their master as a successor. Xianxia has another particularly popular variant — characters going into ruins of ancient long-gone sects, discovering and passing some sort of a test in order to gain their "inheritance", ranging from techniques to artefacts to bound servants (bound immortal demons and the like).
• Heroic Sacrifice: Very common, particularly in the context of Sworn Brothers.
• Honor Before Reason: The code of xia embodies this trope.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Anyone who wields a sword or saber will have this.
• Important Haircut: Hair-cutting, or refusing to cut it, has had important implications in Chinese culture and history (as in Serious Business-level important), making this a trope that appears quite often.^ContextIn traditional/Confucian Chinese culture, the hair was considered part of the body given to one by one's parents. Filial piety was Serious Business, so cutting one's hair short was considered disgraceful, or even outright mutilating the body one's parents gave them, so haircuts were usually considered a big no-no once a person reached adulthood (if not earlier). For example, Buddhist monks and nuns would shave their heads (which could be considered as a rejection of Confucian custom — Taoism aligns with Confucianism much better than Buddhism), and criminals would often have their hair cut short to humiliate them, so especially if someone in such a setting like wuxia cuts their hair of their own volition, it's important.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: The genre often features odd but very cool weapons such as the Flying Decapitator, which is a fancy cage on a chain that's supposed to be thrown over a foe's head and using a special mechanism, it cuts off the person's head with blades at its base.
• Improvised Weapon: Chopsticks, furniture, musical instruments, gardening tools, painting brushes. Basically, you name it...
• In a Single Bound: Anyone who can fight can do this.
• Instant Expert: Wuxia, particularly those in the Shōnen Demographic, has an enormous gulf between how long learning a new style is supposed to take and how quickly the protagonist actually learns it. Zhang Wuji learns the Heaven and Earth Great Shift in the span of hours, despite the fact that it's meant to take years. It's usually due to some Applied Phlebotinum.
• Interesting Situation Duel: Swordfighting while running up and down the edge of a cliff is considered pretty normal here.
• Ki Manipulation: Technically qi or chi attacks.^note Ki is merely the Japanese translation of chi, which itself is merely an alternate English spelling of qi.
• King of the Homeless: In the stories where they appear, the head of the Beggars' Sect is this; the gang has allegedly been around since the Han Dynasty, and the head of the gang tends to be not only one of the strongest fighters in the setting, but also has access to a very large spy network thanks to many beggars in their ranks. Said beggars themselves are no slouch in a fight.
• Knight Errant: Every hero in the genre. Indeed, the xia part of wuxia is often translated as "knight-errant".
• Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: Introduced in the late 90s, this effect is increasingly common in recent series. In the early and mid-90s, they're usually represented by a series of explosions traveling outward from the fighters.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Magic-users are capable of just as much asskicking as everyone else when it comes to kung fu. Unlike the western wizards, who are basically bookworm scholars, wuxia magicians are usually Taoist priests or their equivalent who had to master their bodies before attempting to master magic.
• Lady of War: Many female xia qualify as this.
• Lonely at the Top:
  • A problem that plagues every shīfu, good or evil. Some of them will raise disciples just so they can have someone to spar with as equal.
  • This is sometimes a genre flaw, especially in xianxia novels where the protagonists eventually become so insanely strong that they have no equal.
• Manly Tears: To be shed once someone dies, regardless of alignment.
• Martial Pacifist: Also pretty much a standard, though less so in xianxia, where it's common to see protagonists search for fights in their attempt to become immortals.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: And sometimes, it's thicker than blood.
• Master Swordsman: Almost everyone who's wielding a sword will be this.
• McNinja: Despite being generally set in China, wuxia films commonly feature characters dressed in stereotypical black ninja-like costume and utilizing stealth tactics. However, many are typically not so stealthy; a recurring theme is for one to sneak about only until they reach their intended victim, then straight up burst into the room and engage the target in a Sword Fight.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Played straight and subverted in equal measure. Sometimes mentors will simply declare that they have nothing left to teach the protagonist and fade into the background; other times, they are killed to provoke the protagonist.
• Noble Demon: Quite common as the primary antagonist or Big Bad, especially in fiction set in Imperial China. As Masters are expected to act with civility and decorum, many villainous characters thus still hold on to a Code of Honour. It is not unusual for the villain to spare the hero simply because the hero is not in the villain's league or because they were a Worthy Opponent. It's equally common for bitter enemies to share tea or wine over philosophical debates before the fisticuffs start.
• Old Master: Lots of these. Anyone addressed as shīfu will inevitably be one.
• Omnipresent Tropes: There's a genre typically set in an ancient/medieval time long past, where Sword and Sorcery worlds of adventure are populated by magical creatures and races, wild animals, valiant knights on horseback, wizards and mystics, bandits, barbarians, vagabonds, dragons, lone wolf types, fair princesses, nobles of variable morality, and dark lords seeking power. A hero from a peasant village must rise to overcome the odds and restore justice to the land, and along their journey, they'll meet a variety of unusual characters and often be taught by a mentor figure. Now, are we talking about wuxia or European fantasy?
  • Both developed independently of each other, but due to universals of the human condition, they wound up becoming remarkably similar, with personal qi cultivation rather than divine enchantment being a primary difference with the more common usage of kung-fu also being a major point of contrast. Whereas Western fantasy almost universally leaves hand-to-hand combat to the realm of drunken tavern fights, wuxia add many styles of kung-fu to the mix.^note It should be deeply stressed that hand-to-hand kung-fu is just an additional method of fighting — most wuxia characters still use weapons such as swords.
• One-Man Army: Pretty much any character of note can decimate an entire squadron on their own (if they have any kung fu skill).
• Patriotic Fervor: Stories are often very pro-Chinese.
• Pressure Point: Pretty much the Trope Codifier, where attacking one's pressure points to incapitate them is a common move in wuxia.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: There are plenty of these, though many suffer from the Standard Female Grab Area problem.
• Psycho Serum: Usually in the form of pills.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: If the setting involves multiple sects, chances are the head of the sect will be one of the top-tier fighters in the wulin...or at the very least, the main character will expect a tough fight.
• Rebellious Princess: Often combined with the Lady of War.
• Red Shirt Army: If there's a large group of soldiers, expect them to be this.
• Roof Hopping: Very, very, very common, especially in fight scenes. Generally, in East Asian fantasy, leaping as if weightless has been more common than outright flying, but it's sometimes used as a transition between "normal" jumping and full-fledged flight.
• She-Fu: Many female xia exhibit this in a fight. Not to be confused with shīfu ("master"), which is pronounced (roughly) "shr-fu" in Mandarin.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: The relationships between feisty action maidens and heroes can venture deep into Tracy-Hepburn territory.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Most wuxiá stories are deep in the idealistic side.
• Stock Wushu Weapons: Expect traditional wushu weapons like the jian^note Sword, qiang^note Spear, chui^note Hammer, and numerous others to show up in these media.
• Supernatural Martial Arts: Especially in xianxia.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Rather common, especially in early Shaw Brothers movies. Cheng Pei-Pei and Hsu Feng donned male disguises in more than five of their films.
• Sword and Sorcery: Quite literally the Chinese version of this trope, to an almost uncanny degree despite the genres developing entirely independently.
• Sworn Brothers: The relationship of "sworn brothers" is a central feature of the genre. The "Peach Garden Oath" of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a particularly famous example.
• Three-Point Landing: Usually not too exaggerated, though common.
• Training from Hell: Many wuxia heroes typically have to go through this to get badass.
• Treacherous Advisor: A must-have in stories of palace intrigue.
• Tsundere: If The Hero is a guy, expect every martial-arts-capable lady he meets to be like this. Every single one of them.
• Ur-Example: Most modern action shōnen manga, due to being inspired by the very wuxia-influenced Dragon Ball and Fist of the North Star, can trace their roots back to this and xianxia. Many tropes that define shonen — Supernatural Martial Arts, screaming while powering up, bystanders commenting on the main fight, exaggerated senses of honor and friendship, Ki Manipulation, Battle Auras, Golden Super Mode, Calling Your Attacks, and much more — started out in wuxia and xianxia tales hundreds of years ago.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Numbers of overpowered villains introduced early on in a series are usually left in the dust when the main characters get rapidly stronger.
• Wainscot Society: As stated above, the jianghu is associated with a world that runs with its own rules parallel to society in Imperial China.
• Wire Fu: Used in films to perform exaggerated feats of qinggong ("light body skill"). It should be noted that this is an actual skill, but real-life qinggong doesn't look like Wire Fu — it's much closer in spirit to Le Parkour.
• World of Badass: Named characters in any work are usually able to kill a normal human in one strike. Not that there's very many muggles, mind you...
• Worthy Opponent: A wuxia villain is nearly always someone who could have been a hero, but went down the wrong path somewhere.

Examples: