It’s a partially a memoir of a long lost golden era from the first elite and privileged generation of modern Chinese who overthrew the Qing Dynasty and helped to set up the very first republic nation in the entire Asia - The Republic of China. And it is partially an eulogy of the ending of the ancient Chinese martial arts chivalry way of living. The author waited till his 60s to be ready to combine these two into a story to be told with a very accurate details of a very memorable year in modern China’s history - 1937 - when the China-Japan war finally broke up.
We are just lucky that we still have an author like this gentleman to live to share the moments of his parents generation when China was a young democratic society that was well connected with the rest of the world yet still kept many ancient Chinese civil traditions live and when there were still a few last generation of people who were making a living through the ancient martial arts rules and traditions.
Those details, through 60 years fading memories, became so pure and beautiful and nostalgic to be told through a fictional revenging plot.