What makes cersil different from other form of stories about history and ancient heroes is that it always tells characters that have masterful and sometimes superhuman skills in pencak silat. Some has fantasy and mythology elements such as gods, spirits, heavenly creatures, monsters, dwarfs, witches, or demons. Like the knights stories in Europe, both cersil and wuxia novels present the stories about warriors, kings, heroes, warlords, hermits, and beautiful princesses, with historic events from ancient and medieval age to colonialism era in 18th and 19th century as a background to the whole story. The cersil flourished since early 20th century, and heavily influenced by wuxia novels or kung fu novels from China. It is based on Indonesia’s traditional martial art discipline, the “pencak silat” or simply “silat”, hence the name. One of the most popular genre of novels in Indonesia is the “cerita silat” (cersil) or martial art story.
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