The Swordsman Poet

The Sword-Wielding Poet Immortal follows Li Bai's life, painting a portrait of a poet against the backdrop of the High Tang.

He once roamed far and wide with a sword at his side, dazzling the capital with the boldness of “The great roc rises with the wind one day.” He entered the Hanlin Academy, where he composed “Clouds suggest her garments, flowers her face” for the imperial consort, yet could not escape court intrigue. In the end, he left the capital with the proud resolve of “How could I bow and scrape before the powerful?” He journeyed across mountains and rivers, watching “a torrent plunging three thousand feet” at Mount Lu and finding that “we gaze on each other without growing tired” at Mount Jingting. His verses were filled with the vastness of heaven and earth. When the An Lushan Rebellion broke out, he joined Prince Yong's staff, hoping to serve the world, but was caught up in a struggle for imperial power and made a prisoner. Even as he was exiled to Yelang, he still sang, “The light boat has already passed ten thousand mountains.”

From the chivalrous spirit of a sword-bearing youth to the glory of serving at the imperial court, from the disappointment of being sent away with a gift of gold to the hardship of exile in Yelang, and finally to the tragedy of joining the army in his later years, the Poet Immortal stumbled through the narrow space between ideal and reality. Yet he always embraced the world with an unclouded heart, turning every hardship into the dazzling brilliance of his verse.