How Wee Ng 2026. Disarming the Knight-Errant: Remaking Wuxia in My Own Swordsman. in: How Wee Ng (ed.) The Chinese Censorship Discourse on Television Dramas: Worrying about the Audience in Postsocialist China Routledge.
| Chapter title | Disarming the Knight-Errant: Remaking Wuxia in My Own Swordsman |
|---|---|
| Authors | How Wee Ng |
| Editors | How Wee Ng |
| Abstract | This chapter examines how My Own Swordsman, a violence-free wuxia comedy, remakes a genre long censored for its perceived moral threat to youth. Historically linked to vigilantism and rebellion, wuxia has repeatedly come under state scrutiny. As a compelling study for illustrating the rehabilitative nature of postsocialist censorship, Swordsman reframes the genre as ideologically safe and morally uplifting by drawing on comedic elements and witty banter in place of martial violence. Director Shang Jing celebrates the show’s reliance on “wisdom and reason,” emphasising “spiritual strength” over aggression, while CCTV censor Lu Shanjia positions his intervention in the series as “creative authorship.” Their narratives reflect a broader phenomenon in which censorship is not rehabilitative but also collaborative between television professionals and censors. This chapter also analyses how censorship discourse draws legitimacy from youth confessions—public narratives in which young viewers attribute delinquency to wuxia and endorse its regulation. These confessionals work as dividing practices that discipline the young and reinforce the genre’s moral rehabilitation. Ultimately, this chapter argues that censorship in China not only eliminates perceived harm but actively reconstructs cultural meaning to interpellate youth as both moral subjects and loyal neoliberal consumers of state-approved narratives. |
| Book title | The Chinese Censorship Discourse on Television Dramas: Worrying about the Audience in Postsocialist China |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 22 Jan 2026 |
| ISBN | 9781003471684 |
| 9781032749549 | |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003471684-7 |
| Web address (URL) | https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003471684-7 |