The Sorcerer and the White Snake

A good movie, it had some issues here and there like any movies. However, most audience might not quite understand the underlining concepts behind the movie. Tons of Buddhist concept and fables in **** main Theme of the movie is actually based on one of the Buddhist(Theravada) concepts in regards to the Serpent King. It was kind of funny with one of the review suggesting that this movie was a combo of all the other Hollywood movies such as Harry Potter, etc, etc when in actually these Buddhist or Chinese stories have existed for well over 3000 years...I think it's the other way around these Hollywood movies are a combo of the Asian stories and fables. The other ignorant reviews from people of western origins is the fact that they compare these Asian heroes as typical humans...that's like comparing Superman to Jane. The point here is these Super heroes are like **** the Asian version of the Superhumans...

First of all shame on me for not knowing the source material before watching this. It is based on a Chinese legend known as „Legend of the white Snake“ or „Madame white Snake“ which is quite popular in China. They changed the story to be fair in some major parts. Why I start my review with this? Because my expectations will lead to one of my major complains and I consider this a least a bit unfair. It was an entertaining experience but had a downer ending that left a bad feeling and even regret for me. The source material had a far better ending that I would love to see. Also Jet Li is the bad guy here for me or “lawful stupid” which is pretty unique as he was the good guy or had a least a solid moral compass in nearly all of his movies I knew. Even the movie acknowledge this as the Fahai from the source is a far worse being. Both of these points weaken the experience for this otherwise great movie. It is a martial arts movie with elements of star crossed lovers and asks philosophical questions. Story: It is an amalgamation of stories. There is the Buddhist monk Fahai who travels around the land to get rid of demons with his assistant (or novice / trainee?) Neng Ren. There is the physician Xu Xian who is collecting herbs in the mountains when he has a strange meeting with two woman. There is the snake demon Susu with her friend **** who have a meeting with a physician that changes them. Those are the set ups for the protagonists. Their meetings, developments and decisions will drive the story of the movie. It starts strong but gets weaker towards the (downer) ending. I can see myself praising the movie otherwise so it is not a failure. You can see this because I can go a lot harder down on this movie. Cast: Jet Li as Fahai is a strange case. A good solid performance but for the first time ever I want to see a character played by Jet Li get defeated. I did not root for him, want him to see the errors of his inflexible ways and lose. Did not think this was even a possibility before this movie (This is not a joke). There is Eva Huang as Sesu aka White Snake. Great performance and she delivers the full range of the role. Raymond Lam as Xu Xian is also good and shows the good hearten and a bit naive (tiny bit) character with ease. Charlene Choi as Green Snake aka **** is a strong support and a strength. Wen Zhang as Neng Ren is probably the character with the most interesting progression. The support actors do a good job here. Except I disliked Jet Li’s character I see no misstep and even that I cant blame on him to be fair. Same goes for director Ching Siu-Tung. He made a good movie and the things I do not like I cant blame on him. Maybe the writers could had used the source material better but even here I am not sure what was there idea and what producer or studio interference (This is where the term “Development Hell” mostly came from so I am a bit cautious). I say here the script and aspects of the story fail for me in a way that prevents a good rating. Other than that the special effects looked pretty good back then for me by genre and budget standards. The costumes and sets were excellent. Overall this is a good movie that I will never give a better rating because of the downer ending and changes to the source material that has a better story. But it is also well made so that a negative rating seems unfair. A 5/10 is valid here.