The Sorcerer and the White Snake (Review)
The Sorcerer and the White Snake
aka 白蛇傳說 aka It’s Love aka Bai she chuan shuo aka Madame White Snake
2011
Written by Charcoal Tan, Tsang Kan-Cheung, and Sze-To Cheuk-Hon
Directed by Tony Ching Siu-Tung
Action Directors – Tony Ching Siu-Tung and Wong Ming-Kin
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Ice Age 5: Journey to Mt. Doom!
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The Sorcerer and the White Snake is a big budget effects bonanza that also doubles as a sleeping aide. Thanks to China attempting to become a major player in the movie department, they’ve begun adopting the worst aspect of Hollywood blockbusters. Giant empty special effects, bland characters, story arcs that go nowhere, and a film made as generic and non-offensive as possible to ensure the widest possible audience. Sadly, that also makes The Sorcerer and the White Snake just like so many of those big budget films in that it is not very good. Now, I can’t fault them entirely for being inspired by generic Hollywood junk, that’s most likely the films that are imported over to China that clean up in the box office. But in the race to show how China can do it too, they failed to realize what China is doing is failing just as bad.
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We’ve come to avenge Ting Ting from Thunder of Gigantic Serpent!
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When making The Sorcerer and the White Snake, the producers decided the most interesting part about this classic love story was a supporting character who fought spirits. My thinking is they wanted to do a familiar story but also wanted to do a film with huge action sequences. The only feasible way was to graft it onto the classic White Snake story. But it just doesn’t work. The original tale is diluted and weakened, while the Monk’s expanded story receives little payoff. This decision even further boggles the mind because they kept the title It’s Love, which hints that the film should be focused on the couple and not the monk. The biggest sin of all is the action sequences ring hollow and bland. Large portions of what should have made the film great were sacrificed for spectacles that focues on looking good over actual impact. Thousands of people at thousands of computers worked for thousands of hours to make me bored. Many of the huge battles fail to even convey a sense of danger for the combatants, even when the entire ocean is turning into giant tidal waves with giant snakes swimming around, no one seems to be in real danger.
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Someone wasn’t paying attention when they read the Book of Genesis!
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But are there bright spots? Well, the film certainly looks very nice. Good cinematography. Moments of the action sequences are good, but not enough. This paragraph should be longer, but I really can’t think of anything.
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By that time, my mouse lungs were aching for air.
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It is legally impossible to talk about The Sorcerer and the White Snake without bringing up the last well known theatrical version of this story, Green Snake. I’m serious. Lawyers will call you and yell. While Tsui Hark’s film is a masterpiece, it is a completely different story (based, in fact, on a separate work, the book Green Snake by Lilian Lee!) Comparing Green Snake to The Sorcerer and the White Snake is like complaining because The Muppets Wizard of Oz isn’t enough like Wicked. They are two different stories with two different tales, with the same narrative starting point. And this post isn’t about Green Snake, it’s about The Sorcerer and the White Snake.
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I hate it when I’m in the bamboo forest and a rap video breaks out…
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Let’s meet the cast, then I’ll point out some places where the film did okay and where I got annoyed.
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So much CGI, the excitemenZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
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Treasure Inn (Review)
Treasure Inn
aka Choi San Har Jan aka 財神客棧 aka God of Fortune Inn
2011
Directed by Wong Jing and Corey Yuen Kwai
Written by Wong Jing
Wong Jing scores with Treasure Inn, a blend of action and comedy with just the right ratio for a pleasant viewing experience. Like most Wong Jing movies, Treasure Inn borrows from a variety of sources, the most obvious are the classic King Hu wuxia films that revolve around inns (Dragon Gate Inn, The Fate of Lee Khan, and even A Touch of Zen) Jing makes the most of the sweeping desert landscape and the cinematography and nature shots are among his best work. Jing wisely brought in Corey Yuen Kwai (DOA: Dead or Alive, So Close) to direct the action sequences, giving them the fanciful look that Yuen brings to his projects. But before we get to the inn, we have the journey along the way.
At this point, I’m no longer impressed by opening credits animated in Flash. Luckily, the credits are quickly over, and we jump into the film proper as good guys are slaughtered and villains strike a deal. But let’s meet the cast!
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The Sorcerer and the White Snake
The Legend of the White Snake lives again in movie form with the upcoming The Sorcerer and the White Snake (白蛇傳說), which hits theaters in China in September. The Legend of the White Snake is a story older than writing, and has been the basis for countless stories, books, operas, tv shows, and films. The version probably most familiar in the west is Tsui Hark’s 1993 Green Snake, with Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong. White Snake and Green Snake are two snakes that have taken human female form, and the basic story usually involves White Snake and a young scholar falling in love, until a monk comes along and throws White Snake into a well. Later versions sometimes change things to a more happy ending.
The Sorcerer and the White Snake has Jet Li as the Monk Fa Hai, and it will feature many martial arts battles. Eva Huang is White Snake, and Charlene Choi is Green Snake. The scholar Xu Xian is Raymond Lam, and the Monk’s understudy is played by Wen Zhang. Several others have been cast as various demon characters, including Jiang Wu as Turtle Devil, Vivian Hsu as Snow Goblin, Miriam Yeung as Rabbit Devil, Chapman To as Toad Monster and Lam Suet as Chicken Devil. So it will be a huge zoo of fairy monster people!
The Sorcerer and the White Snake has had a few English titles, originally Madame White Snake and then It’s Love. But It’s Love is a lame name, thus the distributor changed it to The Sorcerer and the White Snake to pull in Harry Potter fans. I’m kidding, they actually did it to get fans of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice franchise! But will it have the “mocha mocha” song? Because you need the “mocha mocha” song!
Ching Siu-tung (1987’s A Chinese Ghost Story) directs.
Trailer:
English subs trailer:
Effects work video:
Imagebomb:
via HKMDB
Hidden Heroes (Review)
Hidden Heroes
aka Zhui ji 8 yue 15
2004
Directed by Joe Ma Wai-Ho and Soi Cheang Pou-Soi
Written by Joe Ma Wai-Ho and Sunny Chan Wing-Sun
After Steve Chow stopped doing 30 films a year to focus on bigger projects, Hong Kong went through a state where the genre of mo lei tau was sort of a walking dead. But before the bullets where put through the brain, several pretenders to the throne were marketed. Nick Cheung was just not very funny, but Ronald Cheng at least had some of the childlike charm mixed with perversion and quick wit that was Chow’s claim to fame. Not enough to capture the thrown and come out with 30 films of his own each year, but enough that he could do at least one. Cheng’s acting style was to hold nothing back, often screaming his lines and charging forward, no matter the ridiculous situation, and going with the flow whether situations become dangerous or completely wacky. And much of Hidden Heroes is wacky. It is a mo lei tau film, and done well enough you could see Steve Chow starring in it, but not so mo lei tau that people start dancing in the streets. The tonal shifts remind me a lot of the Fight Back to School films.
Hidden Heroes is also that rare genre of Hong Kong Science Fiction. Not with kung fu masters flying around shooting cartoon rays, but with time traveling robots. And that will bring out comparisons to The Terminator, even though the films are almost completely different. The movie itself even references The Terminator. Because of the nature of Hong Kong cinema, Hidden Heroes becomes a few other genres as it goes along, sometimes tacking serious as the framed cop/corrupt cop story plays out.
This film is also where Charlene Choi and Ronald Cheng worked together enough to fall in love and eventually get secretly married. Their marriage was finally discovered by the Hong Kong press just in time for them to divorce. Another fun fact about Ronald Cheng is that in 2000 he got so drunk and disruptive on a flight it had to make an emergency landing to kick him off, and the pilot beat him over the head with a flashlight. This became the “air rage incident”, because every story in Hong Kong press has a definitive name. The craziness stalled his singing career for years, and he was just getting back into the swing of things as Hidden Heroes was made.
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Beauty on Duty (Review)
Beauty on Duty
aka Mei lai muk ling
2010
Directed and Written by Wong Jing
Wong Jing takes Miss Congeniality and 9000 characters and mixes them in a blender to pump out his latest wacky romcom (that’s cool people slang for “romantic-comedy”) that is so Wong Jing you’re gonna wong your jing. Or something like that. Like all Wong Jing romcoms, we got more potential couples and love octagons than you can shake a stick at. We have such familiar situations as the people who were lovers in school and then went their separate ways for 20 years, will they get together again now that they have reunited? Don’t forget the people who had crushes on other people and followed them around hiding behind trees. How will they find love? Let’s also give honor to the couple that is the main male character and the main female character. Because, they pretty much have to get together despite the super rich pop star wandering around in the middle of it all.
As there are so many characters and we’re trying to keep the length of this review to a passable level, the Roll Call will only list some of the cast, the rest will be brought up as the plot overview demands.
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: alligators & crocodiles, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Cheung Tat-Ming, Fan Siu-Wong, Hong Kong, Hui Siu-Hung, Jeannette Leung Ching-Kok, Jim Chim Sui-Man, Lam Suet, Lu Yi, Maggie Li Man-Kwan, Pu Hua-Ting, Qi Li-Li, Samantha Ko Hoi-Ning, Sammy Leung Chi-Kin, Sandra Ng Kwun-Yu, William Chan Wai-Ting, Wong Jing, Xie Na
Chinese Sex in the City to be Gillian's comeback film
We get hit with a boatload of news in one story! First, they are making a Chinese Sex in the City film! Secondly, Gillian Chung will be making her return to movies after the Edison Chen scandal as one of the stars! Thirdly, she’ll be joined by Charlene Choi, the other half of the Cantopop duo The Twins! Fourthly, the other two girls are Yumiko Cheng Hei Yi and Joey Yung Cho Yee!
You better know who the Twins are considering how much we write about them here!
Joey Yung is the Queen of Cantopop right now, but most of America probably has no idea who she is.
Yumiko Cheng is a former member of the group 3T and is now a solo artist. She occasionally exposes herself on live TV, making her perfect for this film.
Yumiko Cheng takes a break from exposing herself to expose a pig instead!
None of the casts’ roles are known, so who knows who will be Carrie, Samantha, the other girl, or the other other girl.
There is also no word on who Mr. Big will be, but my money is NOT on Edison Chen.
Asian Fanatics article here
Categories: Movie News Tags: Cantopop, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Chinese Sex in the City, Gillian Chung, Twins
