Originally published at: The Lord of the Rings re-imagined as ancient China | Boing Boing
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That’s really neat. I love how instantly recognisable the characters and situations are.
If the Tolkien estate is smart they’ll insist that this get made as a Chinese-language animated series and make sure that this artist is involved.
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Love this! Seems like such a natural fit, in retrospect. An Afro-centric version would be super cool, too. Then perhaps a Mayan adaptation…
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As I see it, the only thing still missing is a western version of the Easterlings. They should be recognisably “other”, the human allies of Sauron, and taking inspiration from the other side of the continent seems fair.
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This makes all kinds of sense to me. I’d love to see a Chinese LotR on video.
It might be hard to extend the same treatment to “The Hobbit”, just because Smaug would be a poor fit as a Chinese dragon. Chinese dragons are very different from Western dragons. But perhaps there’s another analogous mythological creature that could fit the part.
Incidentally, Mervyn Peake’s “Gormenghast” trilogy – to take another classic work of fantasy from roughly the same era – was said to have been heavily influenced by Peake’s childhood in China. The BBC did a TV adaptation that consciously used Chinese imagery in its depiction of Gormenghast, but it wasn’t very successful.
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So when was this Ring Dynasty?
I really like those.
The books are much more vague about the time and place they draw inspiration from than most of the usual illustrations and adaptations. Much of the standard European-ish medieval-ish look isn’t actually in the text.
Next “Journey to the West” with western characters. Something like this:
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The Westerlings should be “hairy barbarians” with red faces.
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They’re really not. They’re incredibly specific, actually. Not explicit, granted, but almost anything Tolkien wrote can be traced to specific inspirations in early medieval Northern and Western European literature.
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Perhaps I worded that badly. I meant in terms of material culture and the overall look of Arda. Perhaps we’ll have to agree to disagree, but I maintain that the illustrations in the OP are not as far from the text as one might think if they are used to the usual Hildebrandt/Howe/Lee stuff.
Yeah, the Riders of Rohan are clearly early Anglo-Saxons right down to their language, for example. But I like the idea of Chinese LOTR. Maybe we could have a Western Romance of the Three Kingdoms! The saga of the unification of England or France instead of China.
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These are superb!
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