Fighting Female February 2025

After reviving the website in March 2022, I let a year pass before reviving one of the features of the previous incarnation: Fighting Female February. When I did it back in February 2023, my focus was on Michelle Yeoh, who had just won the Oscar for Everything, Everywhere,  All at Once (I think she won as the month went by). I missed last year because the Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year or Tet or whatever you prefer) fell exactly on my birthday. That was auspicious enough to dedicate the month of February 2024 to the Year of the Dragon, reviewing films with “dragon” in the title.

Thankfully, the Lunar New Year fell in January, so the Month of the (White) Snake didn’t clash with Fighting Female February. So, we’re back to this venerable tradition of It’s a Beautiful Film Worth Fighting For.

This year I don’t have a sub-theme. I’ll mainly watch stuff I need to see in order to whittle down the movies in my To-Watch pile—both on disc and my YT “Watch Later” list. I think that is a respectable take. Be prepared for lots of post-2000 films, some of which feature non-fighters and others that star the “next generation” of female fighters after Michelle Yeoh. If I can make a reasonable dent in my To-Watch list (and that goes for all of 2025, as I failed to do so last year), I will be a happy reviewer.

Films Reviewed:

The Princess (2022)
Snow White and the Seven Samurai (2024)
Enemy Shadow (1995)
Martial Angels (2001)
Ultraviolet (2006)
Coweb (2009)
Special Female Force (2016)
The Fatal Raid (2019)
Anna (2019)

Fighting Female February 2025

 

Green Snake: The Fate of Reunion (2022)

Green Snake: The Fate of Reunion (2022) Chinese Title: 青蛇：前缘 Translation: Green Snake: Anterior Edge

Starring: Gillian Chung, Henry Mak, Lin Yo-Wei, Sun Meinan, Michelle Jiang, Xiao Yuanxi, Zhou Luoyi, Yu Qinghui

Director: Luo Jie

Action Director: n/a

I came into Green Snake: Fate of Reunion expecting something of a sequel to White Snake (2021), although I don’t think they were from the same studio. It would have been interesting if this were an adaptation of the Chinese Opera sequel to the legend, in which Qing the Green Snake hones her magical powers in order to defeat Fahai and save her older sister from the Liufeng Pagoda. So, it is isn’t a sequel. Nor is it a remake of the Tsui Hark fantasy classic (well, borderline classic—those rubber snakes at the end…). It is a slightly different creature all around.

The first character we meet is Qing’er (Gillian Chung, best known for singing alongside Charlene Choi in the C-pop duo The Twins), a powerful Snake spirit who has cultivated her qi long enough to assume human form. She lives on the enchanted Jiling Mountain, which is inhabited by lots of friendly spirit animals and ruled by Lord Zi Yue (Henry Mak, of Operation Red Sea and Raging Fire). Qing’er has been anxiously waiting for the reincarnation of her lover, Dao Qing. 

As the story goes, Qing’er was poised to for sagehood (or Godhood) in the realm of the Gods—much like Lady Bai in White Snake. To help her pass the tests, Dao Qing—a tree fairy—gave her the fruits of a divine tree. The Gods punished him by making him mortal and inserting him into the death-rebirth cycle, usually with the caveat that he will die a horrible death at a young age. Qing’er has been waiting for his reincarnation, which she can do for hundreds of years now that she’s effectively immortal (thanks to the fruit). There is also some talk about her being hit with some sort of ice curse, which will freeze and destroy her soul if she leaves Jiling Mountain.

While all this is going on, some sexy scorpion demons are causing havoc at a brothel in the local human town. A group of Taoist ghostbusters led by Cui Lan (Lin Yo-Wei) destroy one scorpion demon. He then points out that his sick master (Yu Qinghui?) now only needs the blood of a snake demon to cure his illness. So Cui Lan leads his men to Jinling Mountain to go snake hunting. Following him is the lead Scorpion Spirit who also wants Qing’er’s heart so she can be immortal and stop feeding on human souls. There is a big magical battle and Cui Lan almost drowns in a lake.

He is rescued by Qing’er, who is convinced that he is the reincarnation of Dao Qing. Initially, he is against her because she is a spirit and all spirits are evil (or so he was taught by his master). It takes him a while to warm up to Qing’er, but he is eventually convinced by her warmth and kindness, which flies in the face of his master’s teachings. And when gets kidnapped by the Scorpion Demon, Qing’er will leave Jinling Mountain to rescue him, even though that may trigger the ice curse and kill her…

There is a lot going on in this, plus a handful of twists and plot complications. It comes to a head with a final magical battle on Jinying Mountain, which actually features a giant monster duel. Three of the Five Venoms—the animals, not the actors—show up in this: the snake, the scorpion, and the toad (at the climax). The big reveal—and SPOILER ALERT!—is that the film is a prequel to the White Snake legend, much like White Snake. But this one is a bit more creative this time around: It is set about six hundred years before the events of the White Snake legend, which is Qing’s age in the legend. At the climax, Qing finds herself having to give up her thousand years of cultivation in order to save the man she loves, causing her to start over again as a green snake. I thought that was a cleverer twist than the one in White Snake, since it gives the film a lot more room to move around with (usually a problem with prequels). END OF SPOILER!

I’m guessing this was a much higher-budgeted affair than White Snake. It has a real cast, including Gillian Chung in the lead role. It is fitting that she plays Green Snake here, as her “twin” Charlene Choi had played the same role in Sorcerer and the White Snake. The effects are a lot better than both those two films, especially the CGI snake. The FX are a bit wonky during the Dr. Strange-esque magic battle in the forest, where it feels like physical concept of space is warped: the landscape folds into itself, everything becomes topsy-turvy, etc. And the film ends on a giant monster battle! The rest of the action is pretty nondescript. It mainly consists of wires, posturing, and magical attacks. It very much feels like a Dr. Strange movie in that respect.

I have seen so many of these films that I feel like I’m running out of things to say. The commentary about the hypocrisy of the religious class isn’t as strong as it is in the earlier adaptation, but that wasn’t really the point. I suppose you can make an argument that this is a sort of criticism of the concept of the Heavenly Realm as defined in Chinese mythology, who will doom a person (or a spirit) to an unending life-cycle of unhappy endings for a single sin committed in an earlier life. That is supremely unfair. 

I suppose one could argue that the message is that Spirit Class of living beings is no different from people: you have your good ones and bad ones, and they all should be treated on an individual basis. The other adaptations hint at that, but end up dwelling on love story aspect of the question: Can two beings from different realms be allowed to love each other, even if it may impact their respective destinies? In this film, Qing’er loves the current incarnation of her former lover, but is more concerned about breaking his death-rebirth cycle than she is physically consummating her love for him. Maybe now that Gillian Chung is now in her (early) 40s, they filmmakers opted for a more benevolent love than something outright sexy, like in Tsui Hark’s Green Snake. On one hand, it goes to show how much she has matured as an actress. On the other, it might just be the filmmakers being really shallow.

White Snake (2021)

White Snake (2021) Aka: The White Snake: A Love Affair Chinese Title: 白蛇：情劫 Translation: White Snake: Love Robbery

Starring: He Hua, Wen Yi-Fan, Yu Li, Xu Ning, Xu Shaohong

Director: Liu Chun

Action Director: Ge Shuai

Of all the films I’ve seen on the topic in the past month, the 2021 iQiyi film White Snake is arguably the most unique in terms of its storyline. It diverges the most from the original plotline, although it has a pretty good reason for doing so, which I will mention in a bit. I mean, the general story beats are the same, but there are some noticeable differences, mainly in terms of who the main antagonist is.

We open with Demon Hunter Brigade operating in the city of Jiangnan. They are chasing what they think may be a snake demon, but it turns out to be a Centipede demon instead. As these things go, the demon initially looks like a beautiful woman, but then transforms into a 20-foot-high monster. Only the combined efforts of Demon Hunter Brigade and a Taoist exorcist by the name of Meng Hai (Xu Shaohong, I think) are able to defeat the monster.

From this encounter (and a couple of scenes shortly afterward), we learn that the Demon Hunter Brigade is operating like a sort of Gestapo in the province. They are given free reign by the local magistrates, who are either deathly afraid of them or bewitched by them. Yes, this will be theme. Meng Hai is suspicious of them, but that will have to wait.

We meet our resident White Snake, Lady Bai (He Hua), who has been cultivating her qi for 900 years and is now able to transform into a human woman. Her little sister, Qing (Yu Li), is still not strong enough to maintain a human form for an extended period of time. The gods in heaven have said that if she goes to the human realm to experience (and presumably overcome) “mortal coils,” she will be granted sagehood and immortality. Her first attempt to become human is unsuccessful, and she is found lying on a rock in her snake form by a young doctor names Xu Xian (Wen Yi-Fan). He tries to nurse her back to health, some scares from Qing notwithstanding.

Anyway, Lady Bai resumes her human form and heads to Jiangnan where Xu Xian lives and practices medicine. They meet and hit it off and are quickly summoned to the house of young Master Gao (Xu Ning), one of Xu Xian’s colleagues and a disciple of Meng Hai. Gao’s father is dying and Xu Xian is the most talented doctor at the local clinic. It is with Lady Bai’s (telepathic) assistance that he places the acupuncture needle in the right meridian, freeing up the old man’s energy and saving his life.

Later on, both Xu Xian and Lady Bai are invited to the Gao residence for a banquet in their honor. Young master Gao tries to have them married on the spot, although Meng Hai shows up and spoils the party by accusing her of being a snake from the outset. Meng Hai is on her trail because of a series of murders committed in town that have been attributed to a snake spirit, but we know better. Lady Bai drops enough hints—disappearing into thin air, miraculously curing his blind grandmother, etc—that it doesn’t take too long for him to figure out her secret.

After she is injured in a battle with the Demon Hunter Brigade, Xu Xian arrives at the conclusion that he loves her. He even declares her to be his wife while talking to a local boatman. Unfortunately, that boatman turns out to be Meng Hai in disguise. A magical battle erupts and Xu Xian decides to swear off his love in order to save her life. He promises to become a disciple of Meng Hai, although he sticks to his guns about not thinking all demons (or spirits) are evil.

Shortly afterward, the Demon Hunter Brigade attack the clinic where Xu Xian works and slaughter all of the doctors looking for Xu. Xu tells Gao where the snake sisters reside and asks him to warn them about the pending arrival of the Brigade. But it turns out that Gao is a turncoat and is working for the Brigade, whose leader is a demon himself and wants Lady Bai’s “Millenial Orb,” which is how she and her sister can live so long.

So the big twist—and SPOILER alert to anybody interested in watching this—becomes apparent if you have seen enough adaptations of the material and have read Paragraph 4 of this review. In all other versions of the tale, it is said that she is a 1000-year-old serpent. But here, she is only 900 years old. Was it a math error? No. In this adaptation, the big twist is that it is set 100 years before the events of the legend we all know and love. So, whatever the end of the film is, it will ultimately lead into Lady Bai pursuing Xu Xian again in the next life (which is the final scene of the film). End of SPOILER.

The movie introduces a new set of villains in the form of the Demon Hunter Brigade, which we suspect early on and then can confirm are mostly demons themselves (but the evil sort). Their leader is after immortality and is willing to slay as many demons as possible to that end, or frame the White Snake for a myriad of killings in order to ferret her out into public. They have all sorts of magical weapons and attacks, although the story has so much going on that none of it gets explained very well.

That is a problem with the film. Like an early 1990s wuxia film, there is enough happening and enough characters with different motivations and end games that 90 minutes isn’t enough time to adequately tell the story. Some elements just seem to pop out of nowhere, indicating that either entire scenes were left on the editing floor or just were not filmed and the editors screwed up royally. For example, the scene where Lady Bai returns Xu Xian’s umbrella, but it was never preceded by any scene suggesting that he had lent it to her in the first place. Near the end, Qing the Green Snake fakes joining forces with the Demon Hunter Brigade in order to buy time for her sister. She leaves and returns almost immediately to free her sister, talking about selling her body to the demon hunters in order to steal their Soul-Breaking Spear. But we never see any of that or anything that hints at it. I’m guessing a scene was cut.

Another flaw is that actress He Hua has simply got nothing on Joey Wong at her prime or Eva Huang at any time. Joey was one of the sexiest demons to walk this earth in Green Snake and Eva was comely and fetching and all that jazz. He Hua isn’t any of that. She’s mildly cute, but she brings no sensuality, seductiveness, or magnetism to her role. I mean, even Brigitte Lin is…well…she’s Brigitte Lin. She needs no introduction. Hu Hua is simply “fair-skinned Chinese pop idol-esque type with no real personality of her own.” Yu Li does an alright job as the more mistrusting Qing, but she too pales—heh… “pale” and White snake—in comparison with Maggie Cheung (nobody will beat the raw eroticism of Maggie’s performance) and even Charlene Choi (whose flirty-cum-cynical turn as Qing I actually liked).

The action is staged by Ge Shuai, who appeared to be a member of Yu Song’s stunt team. In the past few years, he has worked on films like Huang Miao Village’s Tales of Mystery; Maoshan Uncle; Zombies in the Old Temple; and Mountain Guardians. Those films feature a one-eyebrow Taoist priest in the lead role and at least one of them has Billy Lau in the credits, which leads me assume that they are all part of a Mainland Chinese reboot of the Mr. Vampire series. That said, I have not seen of Ge Shuai’s work to be able to critique his style.

Not that he has much to do here. Lots of wires and wooshing and random sword swinging, but not a lot of real choreography on display. Characters wield spears and snake daggers (the ones with the undulating blades) and whips that appear to be made from snake vertebrae, but there isn’t much hard choreography in the film. Just a lot of fantasy action with the occasional appearance of a snake tail whacking people or a giant white snake (which actually works better here than in Sorcerer and the White Snake because it doesn’t suffer from budgetary overreach).

It's flawed and a little bland, but never offensive. It offers a few twists on the material, but it needed either better action or more sensuality from the female characters. But that may be a Mainland censorship thing that causes their female characters to be all vanilla like a Disney princess film.

The Sorcerer and the White Snake (2011)

The Sorcerer and the White Snake (2011) Aka: Madame White Snake Chinese Title: 白蛇傳說 Translation: Legend of the White Snake

Starring: Jet Li, Wen Zhang, Raymond Lam Fung, Eva Huang, Charlene Choi, Vivian Hsu, Jiang Wu, Miriam Yeung, Chapman To Man-Chat, Lam Suet, Song Wenjia, Angela Tong Ying-Ying

Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung

Action Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung, Wong Min-Kin

I think a lot of us fans were…well…not necessarily “excited,” but intrigued when Jet Li said in early interviews that this was his most tiring movie experience. He commented that he was directed to do so many fights that he was just exhausted by the time filming was over. Although I don’t think we were expecting Fist of Legend levels of action, we might at least get more than, say, War or Forbidden Kingdom. Yeah…that wasn’t the case. I think by this point, Jet’s hyperthyroidism was at its peak and he just couldn’t keep up with even the basic wire-fu without getting winded.

As an adaptation of the Madame White Snake legend, this film hits most of the expected beats. We open with the Monk Fahai (Jet Li, of Shaolin Temple and Once Upon a Time in China 2) and his bumbling assistant, Neng Ren (Wen Zhang, of The Guillotines and Gone with the Bullets), on a mission to defeat an Ice Harpy (The Accidental Spy’s Vivian Hsu in a cameo). Neng Ren gets his dumb ass frozen, but Fahai’s kung fu and magical skills are more than enough for the monster (whom we learn has been targeted for freezing the men she has been seducing).

Meanwhile, Xu Xian (Raymond Lam, of Badges of Fury and New Kung Fu Cult Master) is a poor herbalist looking for medicinal plants on a mountain. He is spied by a pair of snake spirits, Susu (Eva Huang, of Dragon Squad and Iceman 3D) and Qingqing (Charlene Choi, of Twins Effect and Twins Mission). Qingqing is a bit more mischievous and decides to give the young man a scare, showing up as a green snake and scaring him into the water. Unfortunately, Xu Xian doesn’t know how to swim, so Susu goes to his rescue. She kisses him and breathes her vital energy into his mouth, thus saving him.

Some time later, Susu and Qingqing take on human forms in order to find Xu Xian in town, which is celebrating a festival of sorts. At the same time, Fahai and Neng Ren have shown up at town looking for a Bat Demon, who has been killing the locals, vampire style. Neng Ren befriends Qingqing, who warns him against pursuing the demon. He ignores her and engages the monster, defeating his sexy bat minions but succumbing to a vampiric bite to the neck. Fahai steps in and gets in a magic battle that ends in a lava chamber(!). At the same time, Xu Xian meats Susu (with the help of Qingqing in serpent form), who reveals herself to be the woman who saved him before.

The two fall in love and are married in a quick ceremony presided over by Susu’s animal spirit friends (cameos by Miriam Yeung, Chapman To, and Lam Suet). So, Xu Xian and Susu start living together and make lots of sweet love, but fate is to intervene in short order. The town of Hangzhou is subject to a plague, which Xu Xian has difficulties curing. Susu infuses his medicine with some of her vital energy—which would have the effect of shortening her life—while Fahai figures out that the culprits are a band of sexy Fox spirits (led by dancer Song Wenjia) and defeats them. While that is going on, Nen Reng is transforming into a bat demon and is assisted in the transformation by Qingqing, who has taken a liking to him.

Fahai figures out that Xu Xian’s medicine has been infused with magic and confronts Susu about it. In his mind, spirits (or demons) and humans should not intermingle, no matter how much the former claims to love the latter. His reasoning is that all humans have a set destiny (time of life, time of death, etc.) and physical union with a spirit will gradually deprive him of his life force and distort his destiny. They have a brief duel of sorcery and Fahai promises to let her go on account of her benevolence on the condition she quickly leave her husband. She doesn’t, however, and Fahai returns with his monks to force her to leave. This results in her reverting to her regular form, resulting in Xu Xian accidentally stabbing her with a spirit dagger.

Wounded and dying, Susu retires to a cave to spend her last moments in the company of Qingqing. One of Susu’s spirit friends, a mouse spirit, informs Xu Xian (who has accepted the fact that his wife is a snake spirit) that she can be saved via a mystical herb being held at the Liu Feng Pagoda at Fahai’s temple. In a Harry Potter-esque scene (which is also a gender inversion on the original story), he steals the herb (which can multiply into many herbs with tentacle-like roots) and saves her life, but at cost of releasing the imprisoned spirits and getting possessed. Fahai and his monks act quickly to exorcise them from his body, but when Susu and her sister show up at the temple demanding his release, things are going to take a turn for the tragic.

I actually enjoy this adaptation, despite its flaws (which I’ll discuss in a little bit). Fahai is less of a hypocritical asshole than he was in both Love of the White Snake and Green Snake, being motivated an honest concern for Xu Xian’s well-being. Moreover, he makes it clear that said concern is based on a belief in predestination, and since meddling in predestination is not a good thing, his actions are partially justified. The other incarnations of Fahai were of the belief that humans and demons shouldn’t mingle, but seemed to oppose mainly on general principal. Without any real explanation as to why that is a problem, it makes them come across as a bunch of jerks. And the fact that they are willing to lie and interfere in individuals’ moral agency to that end, they end up becoming the villains. In this film, you want the young lovers to stay together, but Fahai’s reasoning at least can be defended to a certain point.

Interestingly enough, making Fahai a more relatable character contributes to the finale having an flipped moral stance if you look at it. In other versions of the tale, Xu Xian’s imprisonment in the temple amounts to little more than outright kidnapping, so it almost feels right (or somewhat justifiable) that when the Snake sisters show up and start threatening the place with floods, they are in the right. In this film, Fahai is actually trying to save Xu Xian’s life. This means that when Susu and Qingqing show up threatening to raise hell, they come across as less justified because Fahai is in the right. And the more Susu doubles down on her stance, even after Fahai is seriously injured, the less sympathetic we are to her cause, even if she simply just wants her husband back.

Sadly, the version that I have is the 93-minute US cut that is missing about 10 minutes of footage (presumably to quicken the pace and emphasize the fantasy action aspects of the film). Those ten minutes include the faux wedding, which is entirely played for humor (the joke being that the animal spirits pretending to be Susu’s parents are not very good at playing humans). Susu and Xu Xian’s love scene is also truncated, although in the original cut, it wasn’t any more explicit than that of your average James Bond film. But what I really missed the most was the subplot of Nen Reng becoming a demon and his friendship with Qingqing. Many of those scenes are gone, which were at times even more compelling than the main romance.

The film hinted at the possibility of a bittersweet ending: the man/spirit relationship is doomed to failure, but maybe the spirit/spirit relationship is allowed and comes to fruition. But without the scenes showing Qingqing and Nen Reng together, the final tragedy of Qingqing becoming hardened and cynical after seeing the fate of her sister and leaving Nen Reng doesn’t hit hard like it should. Nevermind that even in the complete cut of the film, Qingqing goes from “You’re my best friend” to “I don’t think you’ll be a good monster, let alone a human” is rather sudden and jarring. In any case, these cut scenes relegate Charlene Choi’s role—one of my personal favorites—to little more than a glorified cameo.

Being a Ching Siu-Tung movie, you can expect this to have more than your fair share of effects-laden action. After all, Ching did the landmark Hong Kong fantasy A Chinese Ghost Story, was the to-go guy for 1990s wuxia, and did the effects-heavy sequences in Shaolin Soccer. Something like this should be up his alley. There is a little bit of actual martial arts, with Jet Li swinging around his monk’s scepter in fights with the Ice Harpy (who wields a gwan dao) and the sisters (who fight with swords). But don’t expect anything better than even the short sequences in, say, The Heroic Trio. The rest is wires and CGI blasts and magical attacks. The fact that all this left Jet Li tuckered out is just a testament to his health at the time.

The digital effects are uneven. I actually didn’t mind them in the early scenes, especially when we see Susu and Qingqing in the spirit realm with their half-snake bodies looking down on Xu Xian from afar. The CGI in some of the magical battles was also okay, if a little childish. It is mainly during the third act that the filmmakers bite off more than they can chew with cartoonish giant snakes, CGI floods, CGI buildings falling apart, and CGI snake attacks. I think that was all too much for what a Hong Kong movie’s budget would allow for whatever the time frame was and the effects quality approaches the badness of direct-to-video Anaconda sequel, if you catch my drift. I mean, it doesn’t quite get as bad as, say, Malibu Shark Attack, but it’s certainly not as good as Python and Boa. Picture that on the tree of woe.

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.