Leila Anani's Reviews > Bridge of Birds

** spoiler alert ** I'm a massive fan of Asian fantasy cinema and Bridge of Birds is like many beloved HK fantasy films in novel form. The main story is a quest narrative - All the children between 8-13 in pure-hearted hero, Number Ten Ox' village fall into a coma after ingesting a pesticide. Ox is sent into town to find a sage and teams up with Master Li (basically Drunken Master) and they go on a fantasy quest to find the ultimate root of power which is the only thing that will cure the kids.

The writing is fantastic: You'd think that being set in Ancient China with a bunch of unfamiliar names and terms it could be quite dry but Hughart is an absolute master - this is pacy and funny broken into little vignettes in the style of Pu Song Ling's 'Strange Tales of a Chinese Studio' - Its a mix of myth and strange but true style realism.

One of the fairytale elements this brings in is the Ginseng root becoming human - Used in several Taiwanese fantasy films, Magic of Spell (1986) and the Ginseng King (1988) this always held a sense of wonder for me as a child and its fantastic to have that included in here along with the heavenly romance tale of the princess of birds. We also have a wicked immortal emperor in a fearsome tiger mask, who keeps his beating heart hidden like Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, a giant invisible spider, lots of treasure hunting adventure worthy of Indiana Jones and a daring escape by a DIY gyrocopter.

I adored every second of this. It's magical, funy and everything you could want in an Aisian fantasy novel. I can't believe Hughart only wrote 3 books - Easily the best in the field.