Love of the White Snake (1978)

Love of the White Snake (1978) Chinese Title: 真白蛇傳 Translation: True White Snake Legend

Starring: Charlie Chin Chiang-Lin, Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Chin Chi-Min, Lee Kwan, Miao Tian, Sun Yueh, Chiang Ching-Hsia, Wu Te-Shan, Lin Chao-Hsiung

Director: Choe Dong-hoon, Si-Ma Ke

Sadly, the only versions of Madam White Snake—both the 1956 Shaw-Toho and 1962 Shaw productions—that I could find on the Internets were unsubbed. To bad, I would have liked to see both of those, assuming that their production values were a lot higher than the Korean version I viewed last. I guess I’ll have to wait for Green Snake for a more lavish take. This time around, we have a low-budget Hong Kong production, starring Taiwanese beauty Brigitte Lin. The “executive director” was Chen Chi-Hwa, best known for his collaborations with Jackie Chan, like Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin and Shaolin Wooden Men. When Jackie hit stardom, he kept Chen around for a number of years, usually doing second-unit directing on his movies.

This adaptation is taken directly from the popular Chinese Opera interpretation of the fairy tale. We open with White Snake, aka Pai Suzhen (Brigitte Lin, of Ashes of Time and Swordsman II), and her younger sister, Green Snake (Chin Chi-Min, of The Best of Shaolin Kung Fu and Return of the Chinese Boxer), walking about the town. Pai Suzhen is looking for a young man named Hsu Hsien (Charlie Chin, of Winners and Sinners and My Lucky Stars). Hsu had rescued her years ago when she was in her snake form and now she wants to return the favor by marrying him and bearing his children. She gets permission from her master, presumably the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, to remain in human form and marry Hsu. 

She arranges for a meeting during a storm while Hsu is crossing the river—like the South Korean Madam White Snake—and convinces him to take him and her sister, playing the role of the maidservant Hsiao Ching, to their home (since only he has an umbrella). Hsiao Ching uses her magic powers to transform an abandoned manor into a beautiful mansion and creates servants from stones and plants—I assume there is a form of animism in which they have spirits, but are simply given human bodies. Anyway, Lady Pai wastes no time in requesting marriage to Hsu Hsien, who is initially taken aback (since he’s a poor pharmacist), but ultimately agrees.

Shortly after their marriage, Lady Pai uses her magical powers to help him establish his own medicine shop. Hsiao Ching even spreads an influenza-like disease in order to give the residents stomach flus, which she helps prepare the medicine for (thus strengthening his reputation in town). The only person who can see through all of this is a wandering Taoist priest (Lee Kwan, of The Big Boss and Seaman No. 7). He tells Hsu Hsien the truth and gives him some talismans to place in the house in order to sus out the spirits (which are called “demons” and “devils” in the subtitles).  Hsu Hsien is pretty close to casting them when he makes a mistake and ends up repenting for doubting his wife and Hsiao Ching, who, by the way, is ready to kill him for his “unfaithfulness”. 

After that, Hsu starts ignoring the Taoist priest, who tries to face the snake sisters outright. They defeat him with their magic powers, and a little hope from their brother, who appears to be a Catfish spirit (Miao Tian, of Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin and The Invincible Swordswoman). The Taoist priest runs back to his master, the Buddhist(?) monk Fahai (Sun Yueh, of The Pedicab Driver and Wu Tang Magic Kick). Fahai confronts Hsu Hsien and tells him to open his eyes to the truth, but Hsu ignores him (following his wife’s counsel to avoid monks and priests). Fahai warns that he’ll be sorry when the May Festival comes.

The May Festival arrives and one of the customs is for families to drink “Huang wine.” Apparently this wine has the side effect of revealing spirit forms. The smell of it is enough to send Hsiao Hsing into convulsions, which Lady Pai dismisses as “sunstroke” and has her shut into her room until she can regain her form. Unfortunately, an ignorant Hsu Hsien insists that his wife drink at least one cup, which causes her to revert back to her snake form, scaring Hsu Hsien to death. Lady Pai travels to Kunlun mountain to get a plant from the Fairy King that will revive her husband. She is successful and uses some BS story about white snakes called “store dragons” to explain the snake he saw.

At this point, things like “respect other peoples’ moral agency” is no longer even a mere suggestion and both the Taoist Priest and the monk Fahai resort to drastic measures. The Taoist pays a palm reader (Wu Te-Shan, of Spiritual Kung Fu and A Massacre Survivor) to write the word “Temptation” on Hsu Hsien’s palm. That allows the Taoist to hypnotize Hsu somehow, leading him out of the city and into the pagoda at Fahai’s temple. There, Hsu Hsien is locked up against his will while Fahai tells his wife some BS story about Hsu Hsien deciding to become a monk. They have a magic battle involving dragons, which culminates in the snake sisters and their brother causing a flood (presumably stock footage from the 1956 Madam White Snake). But the battle isn’t over yet…

In my review of the 1960 adaptation of Madam White Snake that as “romantic” the story is and as devoted the White Snake is to her husband, it is a fundamentally wrong relationship so long as she withholds the truth from him about what she really is. Yes, he eventually finds out and accepts her as she is, but it reminds me of the time I was spitballing ideas for stories years ago and I shared an idea about a guy who marries a Dr. Moreau panther-girl to a friend. She pointed out that if she doesn’t tell him right off the bat, then it is an unhealthy relationship. The same goes for here.

The difference between this and the previous version is that both religious characters—Fahai and the Taoist Priest—are portrayed as being just as bad, if not worse than Lady Pai is. After all, she may be ultimately dishonest at first, but she still loves her husband and wants him to succeed (even if she has to make the townpeople throw up a bit in order to secure business). The two antagonists, for all of their religiosity, are willing to lie, outright control, and break up families for their version of “justice,” which is simply not allowing spirits and human beings to intermingle. Lady Pai may stack the deck in her favor for her husband’s sake, but robbing him of all his moral agency is a few rungs lower on the moral ladder. Fahai at one point declares that he doesn’t care about families and familial relationships, which may apply to some extent to a Buddhist monk, but I’m sure that most religious types place great emphasis on tight-knit and happy families, even if they themselves don’t have one in order to serve a Higher Purpose. So when Lady Pai denounces these two as hypocrites, she is not wrong.

The character of Hsiao Ching also differs from both Madam White Snake and Panda and the Magic Serpent. She is portrayed as being more of a hothead and potentially violent woman, frequently threatening Hsu Hsien’s life whenever he has any sort of encounter with the priests. There are some throwaway lines early on that suggest she might too be sleeping with Hsu Hsien—something about a “7-3 split”—without him knowing it. Apparently, a sequel to this legend was written for the Peking Opera in which Hsiao Ching spends 20 years honing her magic skills, at which point she defeats Fahai and rescues her sister, allowing her to be reunited with Hsu Hsien and her son. I do not know if that part of the story has ever been adapted to film.

The film is filled with special effects, most of which are the primitive type you would see in a George Méliès short from the early 20th century. The snake sisters’ brother shows up as a large rubber catfish that spits water in a few scenes. The dragon duel between White Snake and Fahai uses scale puppets for the monsters. There are some primitive optical effects to represent the snake sisters’ energy, or the White Snake traveling at dizzying speeds. And there is the aforementioned stock footage. Yeah, so not a great fantasy, but it has its moments, plus Brigitte Lin looking beautiful for 90 minutes. Take that as you will.

Madam White Snake (1960)

Madam White Snake (1960) AKA: Legend of the White Snake Korean Title: 백사부인 Translation: Mrs. White

Starring: Choi Eun-hee, Shin Seong-il, Han Eun-jin, Choi Sam, Go Seon-ae, Ok Gyeong-hui, Lee Yeong, Choe Chan-sik, Chu Bong, Kim Ho-yeon, Park Byeong-gi

Director: Shin Sang-ok

This South Korean production was sandwiched in between the 1956 Toho-Shaw Brothers co-production Madame White Snake and the 1962 Shaw-only production, imaginatively titled Madame White Snake. Though not in its infancy per se, South Korean cinema at the time didn’t quite have the sort of budget that Toho and the Shaws had for an opulent production like the two aforementioned films, so this was filmed in black and white with little room for elaborate sets (or special effects, which are quite primitive). But it has a little bit of charm, thanks to actress Choi Eun-hee.

Young pharmacist Heo Seon (Shin Seong-il, whose IMDB page lists over 400 acting credits, including Ernie and Master Kim, which I simply must see) is on a boat returning from a trip to pick up some herbs in another town. A beautiful young woman, Ms. Baek (Choi Eun-hee, who was married to the director), spies the young man and immediately falls in love. When it starts raining, she and her servant, Cheong-han (Ok Gyeong-hui), head to the shore and ask the boatman to pick them up. Heo Seon helps them onto the boat and the young man is polite enough to warrant the woman’s infatuation. He cements it further by lending them his umbrella when they reach the village, allowing himself to return home soaking wet.

Heo Seon lives with his sister (Han Eun-jin) and her husband, who runs the pharmacy. He heads over to Ms. Baek’s house the next day to fetch his umbrella. It should be a red flag that despite Cheong-han’s telling him that all he needs to do is ask the neighbors about Ms. Baek’s house, nobody knows what he’s talking about. He eventually finds her place and Cheong-han invites him in. He just wants to get his umbrella is bolt, but a sexy dance (modest by today’s standards) by Ms. Baek is enough to keep him interested in staying. She informs him that she is a widow and is lonely and wouldn’t mind marrying him. He falls for her charms and spends the night in her home. And to allay his fears about his being a poor pharmacist, she gives him a sack full of silver coins.

Unfortunately for Heo Seon, Ms. Baek isn’t simply able to conjure money out of nothing: it has to come from somewhere. In this case, it comes from the town treasury. And when Heo Seon uses the money to make a purchase, the local merchants suspect that he is the thief. The local police show up and arrest him, his sister, and his brother-in-law. They try to torture Heo Seon into revealing who gave him the money and he refuses to tell them who his lady friend is or where she lives, taking the blame for himself. He eventually does cave and takes the police to her home, which his now a run-down ghost house. When Ms. Baek is confronted, she simply vanishes into thin air. 

However, instead of letting Heo Seon off on the “he was ignorantly bewitched by a spirit” clause in Korean law, he gets shipped upstream for three years of hard labor. When Ms. Baek finds out what has happened to him, she goes to the jailor and convinces him to let Heo Seon go early. He is initially stand-offish with her, but he eases up when he finds out that she helped him off the hook. They get married and settle in another town where she helps him open a pharmacy.

Some time later, a mysterious plague visits the town, killing many and leaving even more sick. A wandering shaman shows up and places the blame on a white snake spirit, which he tracks down to the pharmacy. Mrs. Baek escapes to the spirit realm, where she meets up with the celestial Monk Beo-phae (Yoshio Katsube?) and begs him to help her cure the people. He chides her for breaking the heavenly law of intermingling with humans, although the Goddess/Buddha Avalokiteshvara (Go Seon-ae) is merciful: she gives Mrs. Baek the all-healing herb on the condition that on July 7th, she return to her snake form and return to her cave. She agrees and is able to unmask the shaman, who is really an evil black snake, and save the people. She is about to fulfill her vow to Avalokiteshvara when her life is further complicated by the town magistrate (Lee Yeong?) falling in love with her…

This adaptation is a twist on the more popular Chinese opera interpretation of the fairy tale. It feels like a combination of both the Chinese opera and the story as told in Panda and the Magic Serpent, which itself is taken from the Ming Dynasty version. This one has the detail of the umbrella and them opening a pharmacy after their marriage. It also has the detail of the male protagonist getting blamed for the theft of money (or jewels) from the town treasury. It also shares the same finale as Panda and the Magic Serpent, which is actually a happy one. Long story short, Mrs. Baek’s unwavering devotion to her husband sways the heart of great Avalokiteshvara and she is allowed to stay with him.

I have not seen the 1956 Chinese-Japanese adaptation, but that film had effects work by the master, Eiji Tsuburaya—I understand it was for flood effects and some limited transformations. This one has very bad effects, usually in the form of amateur superimpositions that are transparent. And when Mrs. Baek flies up to heaven to seek help from the celestial monk, you can see the wire holding her up, even though it has been matted onto another shot. And when Heo Seon looks into the Monk’s magic mirror to see the identity of his wife, the superimposed snake looks awful. It’s a real snake, but I think there could’ve been better ways to do the effect, even if it was just a large snake shadow on the wall, like Godzilla vs. Gigan (did with cockroaches).

Effects aside, this adaptation of the story is interesting in that the relationship between Mrs. Baek and Heo Seon is, by modern standards, toxic. The entire union is built upon dishonesty with regards to who Baek is, where she got the money, etc. And even when she has the opportunity to come clean (after springing him from the join), Baek just piles on the lies. Although her intentions are arguably good, if you’re really a white snake spirit, that should be disclosed from the outset, no matter the result. I mean, once Heo Seon finds out the truth, he’s willing to overlook that, so I think things would have turned out for the best if she had been open about her origins.

In the end, I actually enjoyed this version thanks to a good performance from Choi Eun-hee, who shows why she was so important in Korean cinema during that period.

Panda and the Magic Serpent (1958)

Panda and the Magic Serpent (1958) Aka: The White Snake Enchantress; The Great White Snake; The Tale of the White Serpent Japanese Title: 白蛇伝 Translation: White Snake Legend

Voice Cast: Hisaya Morishige, Mariko Miyagi
Director: Taiji Yabushita

Okay, our first film to cover for the Year of the White Snake (i.e. 2025) is an animated film, probably the first at this incarnation of the site. This is not the first adaptation ever. Toho had teamed up with the Shaw Brothers two years earlier for Madame White Snake, which featured some effects by Mr. Tokusatsu himself, Eiji Tsuburaya. The year before that, there was The Legend of the White Snake, which appears to have been a filmed opera. A sequel, Shileng Offers Sacrifice to the Leifeng Pagoda, came out the same year. Those two were preceded in 1952 by The Legend of Madame White Snake, which starred the very popular Yu So-Chau in the lead role. The earliest documented—as per my research—adaptation was Chinese production The White Snake (1939), which starred Manchurian actress Chen Yan-Yan in the lead role.

This film, titled Legend of the White Snake in its home country, is a milestone film in that it was a) the first color anime film produced in Japan and b) the first film produced by the new Toei Animation studio. For the record, Toei animation has given us everything from Mazinger Z (or Tranzor Z) to Dragon Ball, from Cutie Honey to Digimon, from The King Kong Show to PreCure. I guess you can say that genre fans and children of most generations have been influenced in some way by Toei Studios. This movie apparently had a staff of over 13,000 animators and artists working on it, whom were able to churn out the film in only eight months. When it was released stateside in the early 60s, it was retitled Panda and the Magic Serpent, but failed to make a dent at the box office.

The story is pretty simple. When Hsu Hsien is a boy, he buys a pet snake from the market. All of the adults around him dislike the notion of a young man in possessions of one of the “five poisons” (my words, not theirs) and he gets ride of the snake. Unbeknownst to Hsu Hsien, the snake can talk and, in a girl’s voice, asks him to never change.

Years later, Hsu Hsien is now a young man. I guess he is a scholar of sorts, but all we see him do is play the flute with his pets, Panda and Mimi (a red panda, whom I thought was a fox). There is a storm near his town and emerging from the waters is a white serpent, who changes into a beautiful young woman named Pai Niang. Joining her is a fish spirit, Hsiao Chang, who takes the form of a young girl. Hsiao Ching is something of a servant to Pai Niang. Pai goes about seducing the young man and is pulling it off quite well at the beginning.

But, we wouldn’t have a movie if there were no opposition. Enter Hokai (or Fahai), a Buddhist monk who has made it his mission in life to expel any and all spirits (yokai in the Japanese version) from this world. The dialog in this movie suggests that he assumes all spirits exist solely to prey on humans, thus he is doing the world a service in fighting them. 

He gets his chance to act thanks to Hsiao Ching and Hsu Hsien’s pets. The latter two animals are fiddling with a wooden dragon that adorns the columns of Pai Niang’s magical estate—that looks like an abandoned building whenever she’s not around—when the dragon comes alive and flies through the air. It carries the animals and Hsiao Ching into town, where it crashes through the room of the local treasury building. Hsiao Ching finds a pair of star-shaped jewels that she steals and gives to the two young lovers.

Upon discovering that some of the jewels are missing, the magistrate demands to know where they are. Hokai shows up and snitches on Hsu Hsien, leading to his arrest and exile from the village. He is placed in a boat and taken (presumably) upstream on (what I assume to be) the Yellow River, taking him to Western China. He ends up in a city on the river where he earns his daily bread pulling ships along the shoreline. He hasn’t forgotten Pai Niang, however, and she visits him in his sleep.

This calls the attention of Hokai, who tracks her down to a pagoda where she lives. The two get into a magical battle and Pai Niang loses, which results her having to forfeit her human form. Hsu Hsien chases her spirit up the mountain and practically falls to his death. So, Hokai takes Hsu Hsien’s body to his temple to be buried, while Pai Niang traverses the universe to the planet of spirits to beg the Dragon God for the Flower of Life to resurrect Hsu Hsien. She is even willing to sacrifice her own immortality to that end. She is granted her wish, but that Hokai is a stubborn man…

Like a lot of famous fairy tales—White Snake is considered one of China’s four classic fairy tales—there is a certain evolution to the tale over the centuries. Generally speaking, the story started life with the titular character as the villain and the resident religious figure (originally a Taoist exorcist) to be the hero. As the years passed, other incarnations slowly switched the roles, so that the story was about a forbidden love with that darn Buddhist guy getting in the way.

Panda and the Magic Serpent is essentially a Disney-fied adaptation of the late Ming Dynasty version, “Madam White is Kept Forever Under the Thunder Peak Tower.” This version was found in Feng Menglong’s Stories to Caution the World, published in 1624. I say Disney-fied because much of the film revolves around the antics of the animal characters, including a set of “bandits” living in the Western Chinese city, which includes two hogs, two weasels, a duck, and some mice. The film also substitutes the original tragic ending with something a little more hopeful. In fact, the idea of giving up immortality and/or monster forms for love is something that Western viewers would see years later in Disney fare like The Little Mermaid and Hercules.

The animation is pretty good, I guess. I’m not a huge expert in judging animation. The first sequence is a set of still images set to dialog and singing which reminds me of some of the cartoons that my elementary school teachers at Grant Elementary School showed us on a projector circa 1988. Then it gets into the actual story, where the animation reminds me of…hmm…I’d say something to the effect of a late 1930s MGM cartoon. That especially applies to the animals, which have a “slinky” quality to their movements. Which is fine. But by 1961, American audiences were getting films like Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmations, so animation of that level was probably “old hat.” And toss in folklore that most children would have been unfamiliar with and I can see why people didn’t go for that. But, Japanese kaiju and tokusatsu movies were still doing great business in the States, so I wouldn’t chock it up to full-blown racism. I just think that Disney and Warner Brothers animation was in a better place at the time. Sixty years later, however, and it’s a completely different story.