Depictions in Popular Culture
In modern China, the Eight Immortals are still a popular theme in artwork. Paintings, pottery, and their statues are still common in households across China, and are even gaining some popularity world wide.
Several movies about the Eight Immortals have been produced in China in recent years.
In Jackie Chan's movie "Drunken Master", there were eight "drunken" kungfu forms that were said to be originated from the Eight Immortals. At first the protagonist did not want to learn the Immortal Woman He form because he saw it as a feminine form but eventually created his own version of that form.
The Eight Immortals play an important part in the plot of the video game Fear Effect 2.
In the Andy Seto graphic novel series "Saint Legend", the Eight Immortals reappear to protect the Buddhist faith from evil spirits set on destroying it.
In the X-Men comic book, the Eight Immortals appear to protect China along with the Collective Man, when the mutant Xorn caused a massacre in one small village.
In the Immortal Iron Fist comic book, there are Seven supreme kung fu practitioners, called the Seven Immortal Weapons. They each hail from other-dimensional cities and must fight for their city's chance to appear on Earth. Aside being named the "Immortal" Weapons the most overt reference to the Eight Immortals is that one Immortal Weapon, Fat Cobra, hails from and represents a city called "Peng Lai Island".
In the roleplaying game Feng Shui, the Eight Immortals appear in the sourcebook Thorns of the Lotus.
The Eight Immortals played a role in the animated show Jackie Chan Adventures. In the show the Immortals were said to be the ones who defeated the Eight Demon Sorcerers and sealed them away in the netherworld using items that symbolized their powers. They then crafted the Panku box as a key to opening the portals that lead into the demons' prison. Later on the series the items the Immortals used to seal away the demons the first time are revealed to have absorbed some of the demons' chi and become the targets of Drago, the son of Shendu (One of the Demon Sorcerers) to enhance his own powers.
In The Forbidden Kingdom, Jackie Chan plays the character Lu Yun, who is supposed to be one of the eight immortals, as revealed by the director in the movie's special feature, The Monkey King and The Eight Immortals.
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