Although it is generally known under the title for The
Sorcerer and the White Snake, the title card for Tony Ching Siu-Tung’s latest
film has the English title “Its Love,” which sounds not a bit unlike a really
cheesy telenovela – the kind which my mom used to watch on the Spanish language
television networks, much to my dissatisfaction, when I was a kid. Like “Asi el
Amor” or something. It’s actually a fairly appropriate comparison, as The
Sorcerer and the White Snake features enough soft focus and lingering close ups
of beautiful people casting longing looks just past the camera to fill a week’s
worth of episodes of the goofiest Mexican soap opera.
The Sorcerer and the White Snake is one of the growing
number of made-for-China films from old-guard Hong Kong
film makers. Like Jingle Ma’s Butterfly Lovers and Frankie Chan’s The Legendary
Amazons, Ching’s latest film covers well-worn material. And while I cannot
speak to The Legendary Amazons as I have not seen it, I can say that Butterfly
Lovers and The Sorcerer and the White Snake aim for the same audience of
teenaged Chinese girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And Tony Ching has made a better film than Butterfly Lovers
in all respects. It is considerably better written, better acted, looks much
less low-budget and etc. But it does as much for me as Butterfly Lovers did.
Other versions of the tale have aged quite gracefully. The Japanese film, Love
of the White Snake, is pretty close to timeless. Tsui Hark’s Green Snake is one
of my favorite movies; for all of its dated pre-handover commentary, there is a
meditation there on love and destiny and human nature that is unusually deep
for as commercial a director as Tsui.
So what of The Sorcerer and the White Snake? I don’t know.
It seemed to me like an easily forgotten exercise. The computer generated
effects, which dominate every part of the movie, are hardly impressive compared
to western films, and there is neither interesting design nor thematic weight
to hold them up. Jet Li is on hand to play Fa Hai, whom the script portrays as
essentially well-meaning, but his athleticism means quite little when CGI chaos
floods the screen. He showed himself quite capable of handling dramatic roles
in Ocean Heaven, but his character has none of the depth seen in Tsui’s Green
Snake. He is well-meaning throughout, and that is all we know of him. There is
no unresolved doubt, no hypocrisy, and no sexual tension with his sworn
enemies. He’s one note.
Likewise with Xu Xian. Raymond Lam is competent enough in
the role, but we only know that he likes to help people with his herbal
medicine and that he loves Bai Suzhen. He finds no moral dilemma in her
deception (she does not tell him that she is actually a snake demon), nor in
their breaking of natural law. He’s one note too.
That we know so little about these characters beyond the
intensity of their feelings makes the climax fairly dull, unnecessary even. There
is nothing to be resolved; it’s a light show. Spectacular, yes, even with less
than impressive cgi, but it is still an empty display.
The Sorcerer and the White Snake is a showcase for pretty
people and often ugly computer effects. It is inoffensive, and likely to
entertain its intended audience with its talking cgi animals (mice, bunnies,
and turtles). There’s nothing especially wrong with it, and it is clearly the
film that Tony Ching intended to make. But it seems to me that it does nothing
that I could not find in any other film of its type. Ching Siu-Tung was once a
director who pushed visual boundaries with his fight choreography and
wire-work. Now he’s directing family film pablum.
Or maybe I’m just burnt out on cgi filled costume films.
