董培新〈一段跨越半世纪的江湖情义〉

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董培新 Pui Sun Tung 先生缅怀罗斌
2026/09/04

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【一段跨越半世纪的江湖情义】

一九五九年，罗斌先生早已是香港出版界的重量级人物——四十年代在上海白手起家，后移居香港，旗下杂志与小说出版早已自成一系，影响深远、历久不衰。同一年，一位新人闯进了他的地盘：金庸先生自立门户，创办《明报》，并亲自执笔连载《神雕侠侣》。转眼间，罗斌先生在武侠小说与报业经营上，多了一个不容小觑的对手。

当时，董培新先生正是罗斌先生旗下的插画家，笔下画过古龙、卧龙生、诸葛青云等武侠名家的作品，早已在武侠插画界闯出名堂。
金庸先生一度想邀董先生为其小说绘画插图，董先生的老板罗斌先生却一口禁止——“你可以帮任何人画，就是不能帮金庸。”一句话，断了这段本可能更早开始的缘分。

岁月流转，罗斌先生退休，《新报》几经易手。到了二〇〇五年，董培新先生终于得金庸先生亲自首肯，将金庸笔下的江湖世界，以大型水墨画的形式重新演绎——先后在广州、澳门、香港、温哥华等地展出，轰动一时。这一次，再没有人能阻止两人的合作。罗斌先生后来更亲临画展现场，看着自己当年不准董先生画的那些江湖人物，终于跃然纸上。

这幅《韦小宝和他的一床家眷》，正是这段合作结出的果实之一——红被翻涌，众女依偎，正是金庸笔下《鹿鼎记》里儿女情长的一幕。而那张画展后聚餐的合照，更留住了两人多年情谊最温暖的一刻：金庸先生亲自执笔，在董先生的画展海报上签下名字送给席间友人，好友蔡澜先生亦在座，一室言笑晏晏。

对董先生而言，这也悄悄圆满了一件事——他早年已为古龙等武侠名家绘过插图与封面，如今金庸的作品终于也收进了他的画笔之下，新派武侠的重要名字，几乎都由他画过一遍。

后来，罗斌先生辞世，董培新先生执笔写了一篇文章悼念这位合作多年的老板——文章刊登在《明报》上。当年不准他画的，正是与《明报》竞争的那份报纸——而如今，他却在《明报》上，写下对旧老板的悼念。虽然罗斌先生与金庸先生曾是商场上的竞争对手，但那份像江湖中人的情义与对彼此的尊重，却在人生落幕之时悄然浮现。


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[A Rivalry That Came Full Circle]

By 1959, Law Bun was already a fixture of Hong Kong publishing — a veteran who'd built his business empire from Shanghai in the 1940s, moved it to Hong Kong, and built a stable of magazines and novels that shaped popular reading for decades. That same year, a newcomer entered his territory: Jin Yong, striking out on his own, founded a newspaper called Ming Pao and staked its future on a serial he was writing himself, The Return of the Condor Heroes. Suddenly, Law Bun had a serious rival in wuxia fiction and newspaper publishing alike.

Tung Pui Sun was, at the time, one of Law Bun's illustrators, and already a rising talent. He had spent years drawing scenes for Gu Long and other titans of the genre, developing the eye for gesture and drama that would define his career.

So when Jin Yong came looking for an illustrator of his own, Tung was a natural choice. Law Bun said no. Work for whomever you like, he told Tung — just not Jin Yong.

It was, by all accounts, a simple business decision. But it meant that Law Bun and Jin Yong — two men who would go on to shape the look and feel of an entire genre — never got to work together, not for decades, anyway.

Law Bun eventually retired, and the newspaper changed hands more than once after he left. Then, in 2005, something shifted. Jin Yong personally invited Tung to reinterpret his novels — not as newspaper illustrations this time, but as large-format Chinese ink paintings. The result was a travelling exhibition that drew crowds across Asia and North America. Law Bun, by then long retired, came to see it in person — an old rival, standing before characters he had once refused to let this particular artist touch.

One painting from that series, Wei Xiaobao and His Wives, hangs today as a kind of quiet monument to what might have happened decades sooner. A tangle of red silk, a room full of sleeping figures — the tender chaos lifted straight from Jin Yong's novel The Deer and the Cauldron.

A photograph from an evening after one of the exhibitions captures something gentler still: Jin Yong seated at a table, signing a poster for friends gathered around him. Among them was Cai Lan, the writer and raconteur remembered as one of Hong Kong's "Four Great Talents," alongside Jin Yong himself. By every account, it was an evening of easy company and good humor.

There is a kind of symmetry to how the story ultimately resolved. By the time Jin Yong gave his blessing, Tung had already illustrated nearly every major figure of that golden generation of martial arts fiction — Gu Long chief among them. Jin Yong was simply the final name to fall into place, arriving later than it perhaps should have.

And when Law Bun passed away, it was Tung who wrote his tribute. It ran, fittingly, in Ming Pao — the very newspaper Law Bun had once forbidden him from working with. Law Bun and Jin Yong spent years as rivals in business, but in the end, what remained was something closer to mutual respect.