From Parallel Montage: Discussing the Cinematic Techniques in Chronicles of the Cultivating God ("Heavenly Dao Xiao Hua")
Why should Along the River During the Qingming Festival, one of China's ten great masterpieces handed down through the ages and the sole surviving national-treasure-level scroll by the great Northern Song painter Zhang Zeduan, have anything to do with the web novel Chronicles of the Cultivating God? Is placing Xiao Duan Tan Hua's Chronicles of the Cultivating God alongside Zhang Zeduan's Along the River During the Qingming Festival overrating the former? Could two things as unrelated as horses and oxen even be placed side by side? I will discuss the artistic similarities between the two works from the following three aspects.
I. Both were richly colored panoramas of life.
Whether Along the River During the Qingming Festival or Chronicles of the Cultivating God, both were grand historical scrolls painted in rich ink and vivid colors. Along the River During the Qingming Festival recorded the cityscape of the Northern Song in the twelfth century, along with the countless forms of life within that city. Those myriad lives formed a picture of Bianjing's prosperity in those years, of ten thousand boats crowding along the Bian River's banks and a gathering of all the sights and customs under heaven. Meanwhile, under Xiao Duan Tan Hua's brush, Chronicles of the Cultivating God also revealed the undercurrents stirring among the various powers of the Cultivation World across the Four Great Continents: chaos about to erupt, winds and clouds surging, heroes emerging one after another. To borrow Mr. Lu Xun's famous words on history, Xiao Hua's era resembled such moments as the Hundred Schools of Thought contend and the Three Kingdoms—brief, yet dazzlingly splendid. True Person Xiao's experiences in the Four Great Continents were much the same.
II. The