Zhangjiajie Tianmen Fox Fairy Show has the full name as Tianmen Fox Fairy Show -- The New Version of Liu Hai Cuts Firewood (Liu Hai Kan Qiao). As an ultra shocking living landscape show, the music drama Tianmen Fox Fairy tells a tortuous folk story of love between man and fox.
Since it debuted stage on September 17, 2009, Tianmen Fox Fairy Show has been performed for more than 2,800 times receiving more than 4 million audiences from more than 60 countries and regions. It is well rated as the China style Broadway Show.
Many travelers staying in hotels in the downtown areas would choose to spend the night time to watch the show whose venue is close to the city center and is very convenient to go.
☝ Tianmen Fox Fairy Show
The venue of Tianmen Fox Fairy Show is the open air Tianmen Fox Fairy Grand Theatre located at the foot of Tianmen Mountain.
The main stage of the show is on a canyon which is 5 kilometers long and 1000 meters above sea level. The lying ancient trees and the prominent stone bed together constitutes a natural live stage. To the left of the stage are perfectly shaped wood stilted Tujia houses built along the mountain. The wooden houses cluster and comprise a village which is used to symbolize the human world; to the right of the stage are strange stone and mountain cave built in the jungle dotted with exotic flowers and grasses which are used to symbolize the wonderful and fantastic kingdom of foxes. On one of the hilltops is the singing platform where more than 100 Tujia girls singing in the same voice providing unbeatable feast for the ears. In the backend performance area are the beautiful countryside consisting of rice terraces, wood bridges and watermills echoing with the distant village of wooden houses.
The whole live show uses Tianmen Mountain as the background creating a spectacular scene. The state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems applied make the show even amazing.
☝ the Fox Fairy
To go there, group travelers can take the bus organized by your travel agency, while backpackers can use either taxi or city bus. To take the city bus, travelers have to depart before 7:00 pm and take any of the buses on routes 4, 5, 6 and 10 to the lower cable car station firstly and then change to bus route 9 that goes directly to Tianmen Fox Fairy Grand Theatre.
It costs about 25 Yuan to go to Tianmen Fox Fairy Grand Theater from Zhangjiajie city center to take taxi.
To return to the downtown after the show, backpackers can take city bus route 10 which costs CNY 10 Yuan. You can of course take taxi to return if you like.
☝ the Live Stage
Without special reason, Zhangjiajie Mount Tianmen Fox Fairy Show opens at around 8:20 pm and lasts about 100 minutes and ends at 10:00 pm every night from March to December. The organizer provides audiences with free raincoat when it rains or snows. Under cold weather, the organizer also has thick great coats to rent to audiences.
Standard ticket costs CNY 238 Yuan per person, B type VIP ticket costs CNY 580 Yuan per person and A type VIP ticket costs CNY 880 Yuan per person. Children with height under 130 cm don't need to purchase ticket. For this reason, seats are not assigned to these children.
Discounted ticket is not available for Tianmen Fox Fairy Show.
☝ the Live Stage
With mountain and lake as the stage, heaven and earth as the theatre, Zhangjiajie Tianmen Fox Fairy Show has a big performance team of several hundreds of people consisting of professional actors, singers & dancers, college students and even local farmers.
The director of the show is Mei Shuaiyuan, who is the founder of China style living and landscape show, a national level script writer, the producer of the well known night shows of Yangshuo Impression Sanjie Liu, Zen Shaolin Music Festival, the Great Song Dynasty -- Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital. The show also has Tan Dun, one of the most influential Chinese music composers as the music supervisor. In conclusion, every key element of the show is closely directed by the first class experts of the field to make sure it can bring audiences with a splendid feast for both eyes and ears.
Tianmen Fox Fairy Show is rewritten from a fairy tale Liu Hai Cuts Firewood which was widespread among people in Hunan Province. It tells a heart touching sad love story between the man and the fox with five chapters.
☝ the Fox Fairy
The music drama draws open the curtain with a female chorus in a wonderful sound with lyrics beginning like this: "who does know how amazing here it is? Who has ever seen that white fox? Who has ever entered that dream Tianmen? Who has ever heard that singing couple?"
The song is actually performed by a hundred of girls from Tujia ethnic minority. Following their crisp melodious singing voice, audiences then enter into a world of fairy tales preset by the director.
In a full moon night long time ago, the kingdom of foxes on Tianmen Mountain was bustling with a cheerful atmosphere as the supreme fox king wanted to use the nighttime to choose an ideal wife. Innumerous beauties with flowerlike faces are singing and dancing before the king with each of them trying to catch the king's attention to win his favor. The king, on the other hand, fell in love with a fairy transformed from a thousand years old fox who was dancing solely to the moon faraway on another mountain and decided to marry her three days later. Unfortunately, the white fox fairy doesn't love the king at all regardless of his fame and power.
The simple and happy life in human world got the infinite fascination of the white fox fairy. She left the mountain quietly to visit a Tujia village at the foot of Tianmen Mountain. There, she met Liu Hai, an unmarried woodcutter in his later twenties by chance. The woodcutter won her heart with his tolerance, diligence and courage.
☝ the Fox Fairy
The white fox fairy would always clean house, cook meals and do other homeworks for the woodcutter anonymously. Her efforts in silence were finally known by the woodcutter. The two fell in love with each other. On the wedding night, the two foxes sent by the fox king to search for the white fox fairy practiced witchcraft to Liu Hai and made him comatose and fell on the ground.
The foxes told Liu Hai that his wife was actually transformed from a fox spirit who was trying to haunt and kill him while Liu Hai wouldn't change his mind at all. On the way home, the couple was prevented by villagers who didn't know the truth from entering home. On the other end, the fox king led a troop of foxes occupying almost everywhere of the mountain and blocked them from leaving. An aged fox pointed out the only escape path to the white fox fairy. When the white fox fairy was about to run to the cliff, the mountain was suddenly collapsed. An insurmountable canyon appeared between Liu Hai and his beloved wife, the while fox fairy. They were separated!
☝ Scene Four: the two lovers were forced to seperate
At a glance, a thousand years have passed. Even though things have changed largely over time, the true love between Liu Hai and the white fox fairy has maintained which touched both the heaven and the earth. The deep canyon was then vanished and the couple was finally able to embrace each other. The foxes and the villagers who have become stone carvings also revived under the call of love. They jointly blessed the eternal lovers would live together happily ever after.
The former is a living and landscape musical drama featuring on nice music and beautiful scenery, while the latter is a folk art performance with various programs which is similar to Chinese Spring Festival Gala.
Audience 👵: The opera is very nice, some of the songs are really very impressive.
Audience 👮: I watched it long time ago. This is the second time I come here, the show is as shocking as usual. Especially when I saw the whole mountains are lighted up at the end of the show, I can't help to say this is the best live show all over the country.
Audience 👯: we come here not only to learn the story, but also to watch the stage affects and the folk song performance.
Audience 👱: the show can't be missed during the visit to Zhangjiajie. The stage is set up in light of the real world scenery of Tianmen Mountain with the lighting system can be called as a miracle. More surprisingly, we can see the Tianmen Cave throughout the show.
Audience 👲: The writing and drawing promotion procedure at the beginning is a big flaw to this wonderful show. The marketing promotion degrades the show and has downside effect to the mood of audiences.
☝ The Live Stage
➀ In the winter night, the temperature in the mountain valley is colder than that of the city center, therefore, travelers are advised to choose the warm night to watch the show. In summer, travelers are advised to use the floral water and etc to prevent mosquito and bug bites.
➁ The entire show is slow paced with singing performance taking the main theme. Therefore, quick tempered persons including children, young men and etc. may feel it's boring. General speaking, it targets people who have good education and high humanistic quality such as women and the elderly.
➂ It has subtitles in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean. Therefore, the show of Tianmen Fox Fairy is deeply welcomed by international travelers.
