The Sword and the Song


The Sword and the Song is a 1986 Singaporean historical series produced by Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. The drama focuses on a pair of great monarchs during the 10th century: Song dynasty's fearless and heroic warrior Zhao Kuangyin and Southern Tang's compassionate and sentimental poet-artist Li Yu, and how their vastly different personalities sealed the fates of their respective countries. The stories about Zhao Kuangyin are to some extent based on Wu Xuan's 1768 Chinese novel Fei Long Quan Zhuan.
Two subsequent TV series, the 1996 Taiwanese drama Love, Sword, Mountain & River and the 2005 Chinese drama How Much Sorrow Do You Have feature virtually the same main characters, though the plots differ somewhat.

Cast and characters

Northern China (Later Han">Later Han (Five Dynasties)">Later Han, [Later Zhou], [Song dynasty])