Yu Wenzhong

Based on the popular novel by Jin Yong Kam Yung. He also wrote Legend of the Condor Heroes and Return of the Condor Heroes. The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre takes place during 14th Century China during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, roughly 100 years after the events of Return of the Condor Heroes. After decades of struggles, famine, and bitterness which the Chinese citizens blamed on the Yuan Dynasty's misgovernment, the Martial Arts sects have begun to rebel. Prince Ruyong asks Cheng Kun, a Shaolin monk with an ulterior motive, for a plan on how to deal with the rebels. "The wielder of Heavenly Sword and/or Dragon Sabre rules the world." This well known legend in the Martial Arts community is the impetus for the tale of Zhang Wuji. The story begins with how his parents met (episodes 1-3), then tells his trials as an adolescent (episodes 4-8), proceeds to relate his rise to prominence (episodes 9-23) and reveals the secret behind Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre (episode 23), and ends with the confluence of Wuji's love life, the Martial Arts sects' long standing grudges, and cruel fate.

The story's initial development revolves around a coveted martial arts manual known as the Bixie Swordplay Manual. The manual has been passed down as an heirloom in the Lin family, who runs the Fuwei Escort Agency based in Fuzhou. Yu Canghai, the leader of the Qingcheng Sect, leads his followers to massacre the Lins and seize the manual for himself but does not find it. Lin Pingzhi, the sole survivor of the Lin family, is rescued by Yue Buqun, head of the Mount Hua Sect, one of the members of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance. Yue Buqun accepts Lin Pingzhi as a student and trains him in swordplay.

A monk turned body-builder, with the gift to see into people's lives, befriends a female cop, and uses his gift to change the force of Karma and her destiny.

With the fishermen's life on the southeastern coast in the early 1960s as its background, the film depicts a group of militia women who work both as fisher women and fighters defending their homes and the motherland.