In fairness, I think it's genre-atypical for the time period. I only remember one other canonically queer character in a wuxia novel from the period, and that's a secondary character who is the worst caricature of a mean-spirited gay man.
The mainland adaptations do NOT know what to do with Dongfang Bubai. The 2013 one makes her a cis woman, and the 2018 makes her, as far as I can tell, a cis man (and seems to make Yang Lianting a cis woman). The adaptations that interrogate gender, gender identity and identity perhaps the most are Tsui Hark's Swordsman trilogy, especially the second and third films.
no subject
In fairness, I think it's genre-atypical for the time period. I only remember one other canonically queer character in a wuxia novel from the period, and that's a secondary character who is the worst caricature of a mean-spirited gay man.
The mainland adaptations do NOT know what to do with Dongfang Bubai. The 2013 one makes her a cis woman, and the 2018 makes her, as far as I can tell, a cis man (and seems to make Yang Lianting a cis woman). The adaptations that interrogate gender, gender identity and identity perhaps the most are Tsui Hark's Swordsman trilogy, especially the second and third films.