Reviewed by: STSH Date: 10/30/2010 Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: Chungking_Cash Date: 03/20/2010 Tsui Hark's soaking wet adaptation of Lillian Lee's novel (itself based on the oral tradition "Legend of the White Snake") is too esoteric to recommend; too gorgeous (dollar store FX withstanding) to reprove a viewing. One of the prolific director's biggest box office disappoints "Green Snake" has the scope of past Tsui fantasies "Zu: The Warriors from the Magic Mountain" (1983) and "A Chinese Ghost Story" (1987) but none of the magic that made those films' camp value worthy of comparison to "Star Wars" (1977) and "The Evil Dead" (1981), respectively. In fact, "Green Snake" is just plain banal at times (the film's rich tapestry not withstanding) though it certainly has a point: if an artist's rendition of evil knocked on your door you'd never let them in but if evil came in the form of natural feminine beauty you might not think twice about it. Zhao Wen Zhuo is a pious Buddhist reverend (is there another kind?) waging a one monk war to keep good and evil segregated in the mortal world and may have met his match when two centuries' old snakes (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, Joey Wong Cho-yin) are taking all the necessary steps to achieve full human form by way of Wu Hsing Guo a disconcerted scholar whom the pair seduce with their ham-fisted sexual promiscuity. As a political allegory "Green Snake" has a set of fangs but as a Tsui Hark fantasy this snake is truly one of nature's most passive creatures. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 02/24/2010 Even in the sometimes schizophrenic world of Hong Kong movies, Tsui Hark's Green Snake stands out. Is it a fantasy film? A romance? A softcore arty smut picture? A deep metaphor on the frailities of humanity and the fallacy of religion? Or is it a bad acid flashback put to celluoid? Like the elusive question of many licks it takes to get to the middle of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know. Still, despite its' problems, the film is still worth checking out if you want to take a walk on the stranger side of Hong Kong cinema. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: ewaffle Date: 02/13/2006 “Green Snake” is a great looking movie, full of screen-filing images that represent good and evil, purity vs. carnality and the spiritual live vs. secularism. There are many references and images that are opaque to the Western observer—at least this Western observer—regarding Buddhism, Taoism and the conflict between them. The coming handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic is unmistakably present—Tsiu Hark may be equating it with the role of religion in traditional Chinese society but I don’t know enough about his attitude toward religion to make that connection. From the evidence of this movie, though, Buddhist monks aren’t on his list of favorite people. A great deal of “Green Snake” could be discussed in psychoanalytic terms but despite the claims of the Freudians, Sigmund’s musings seem to be less universally applicable with each passing year and possibly not at all here. And of course there is the little matter of Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong acting as sexy and seductive as is possible. When not embracing each other in a more Sapphic than sisterly way they seduce monks and fight blind a blind, sulfur-wielding Taoist priest. Green Snake watches White Snake make love, while White Snake watches Green Snake watching her. Green Snake drops in on a sedate orgy featuring Indian-type dancers and turns the lead dancer from a mildly flirtatious performer to a depraved debauchee with a few turns of her hips and a well placed foot. This is a clinic on how to make an extremely erotic movie with only the suggestion of nudity—but what a suggestive suggestion it is—and very little actual physical contact among the actors. This restraint, combined with a lot of extreme close-ups of Joey Wong and Maggie Cheung, shots in which they convey steamy sensuousness with a lift of an eyebrow, the flick of a tongue or the briefest sidelong glance, make it all the more risque. We are aware of the nudity of the female stars, but only second hand—we don’t see Maggie or Joey naked but we see an audience within the movie watching them most appreciatively. The actors aren’t naked but the characters are—most alluringly when Green Snake first watches and then joins the dance performance early in the movie. She appears in a cloud of smoke—the typical method of arrival of both the Snake sisters—in the middle of the floor, much to the shock and then delight of both the dancers and the revelers at the head table who are transfixed. Another is when Green Snake spies on White Snake and Hui Sin while they are making love—Green Snake is extremely aroused by what she sees but se don’t see anything below the throat of White Snake. The audience for the film vicariously watches through the watcher’s eyes. Taken by themselves most of the special effects are terrible—the only effects which are effective as such are the billowing surplice of the monk Faat Hoi. The floods, giant snakes, disappearing houses and sudden storms looked as if they were thrown together quickly and without a lot of planning or expenditure. But they work pretty well, since the effects mainly involve the Snake sisters who we have come to identify with during the movie. White Snake is the more powerful—they have control of the elements—but has worked harder and much longer than Green in order to perfect human form, thoughts and emotions. Green is more flighty, having put in only half of the time White has—500 years opposed to one thousand—and wasn’t paying attention during much of the schooling. Due to her continued snakiness Green does have a most noticeable wiggle to her hips when she walks—noticeable enough so that the crews of small boats fall into the water trying to get a glimpse of her backside as she and her sister walk along the canal. Green and White are the characters who change so we are invested in them. Hui Sin—the honest man—goes from one extreme to another, in love with White, willing to be seduced by Green, hating both of them then willing to throw away everything in order to be with them. A victim of magic, he goes where the latest spell takes him. The monk Faat Hoi begins as an imperious ass who despises humans—in a very effective scene at the beginning of the movie he is disgusted by the antics of a bunch of horribly deformed men and women—and want to eliminate all non-humans, such as the spider who has trained for 200 years so he can be reincarnated as a human. As soon as he senses that there are snake people in the area they are in trouble. It has been very plausibly suggested that Faat Hoi and the monks at the golden temple represent on one level the narrow-minded, puritanical and self-important ideologs from the PRC. The monks are an extremely unattractive crew with a particularly loathsome supervisor—the drum beater with huge ears and a very shaky hand on the razor. He doesn’t know anything other than what Faat Hoi tells him and is willing to carry out his orders no matter what the consequence. And the consequences are fatal to the entire monastery, since he ignores the fact that the room they are in is falling apart around them until it is much too late. The huge red surplice that Faat Hoi uses in the penultimate scene may not represent the red flag of the PRC but one assumes that Hark chose that particular color—earlier the surplice had been white when used to capture the spider/non-human—for more than one reason. Faat Hoi is a very easy target, both for the audience and for Green Snake, who bets she can make him forget his vows. As a character Faat Hoi is a stiff-necked brute who we simply don’t like. But as an object upon which to project a male fantasy this character is just about perfect—while Faat Hoi is being seduced from his duties by Green Snake it is possible that the males in the audience might fall into a reverie involving Maggie Cheung (literally) wrapping herself around them. Quite an image and only slightly more powerful than White Snake casting a spell on Hui Sin and dragging him off to bed. This is the type of movie that I find difficult to rate. Overall it probably deserves no more than a five since Hark manages to make his themes both simplistic and muddled, the ending has a real “what was that all about” feel to it and also makes what should have been a key point (involving childbirth and snakes) a non-sequitur. Some of the images are superb, most of the effects are amateurish and the plot wanders around without ever settling down. But any movie that stars Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong as powerful but misunderstood seductresses deserves at least a seven. Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: JohnR Date: 08/20/2005 Summary: A tale for the 21st Century The green snake/white snake story apparently has been filmed more than once (though I suspect this one is the best) and is shown in Taiwan (and elsewhere?) around Dragon Boat Festival time; but I don't know why. The emphasis is usually on White Snake, though. The way I saw it, it's about the basic inhumanity of the Taoist monk, who's great magical powers are matched only by his ego, his weakness for the female form, and his fundamentalist-like zeal to make sure everyone else is acting the way they're supposed to, even while his own faults go uncorrected. In this age, with fundamentalists of the major religions becoming more and more vocal and assertive, maybe this cautionary tale should have wider circulation. The monk and Green Snake are similar in the sense that they are both struggling with their sexual passion; the monk to eliminate it and Green Snake to experience it. But through their struggles, non-human Green Snake learns what it means to love and exercise compassion for others, while the Taoist apparently doesn't learn anything and his actions result in increasing destruction. The movie doesn't present a very flattering picture of monks, but I took it as an exaggeration to make a point. The movie has its faults, but overall its very well done, well-acted, and recommended.

Reviewed by: bkasten Date: 02/24/2005 Moments of pretty-good-ness interspersed with moments of sheer absurdity make this beautiful Chor-Yuen-like film something of a frustrating experience. However when one considers that the film is really more of a semi-erotic carnal art flick than anything, does it actually make more sense. Unfortunately, it still is marred by too much silliness and low-budget schlock, and shows signs of having a very loose script and ponderous direction. The eye candy does makes this film worthwhile, though, as Joey Wong and Maggie Cheung are truly a sight to behold. (Although I have added a few new ones, the HKMDB images just dont do them justice.) Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy Date: 12/21/2004 Summary: I didn't know what was going on!! I do agree with LEH but i am not sure if i agree for people to see it. It's a bit over the top, i actually was falling asleep watching it. It's not a action movie but what is it?? Is there some buddist message i failed to figure out. Disappointed 3/10

Reviewed by: pjshimmer Date: 12/07/2003 Must agree with MrBooth about the cinematography - very nice. Movie is still only average though. [6/10]

Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 02/07/2002 Summary: Average In my opinion, there is nothing special about this at all. It does over all look such a beutiful movie at times, as is the performances by Joey Wong & Maggie Cheung,...but the whole story was just so over the top, and dragged it down several layers for me. Still, '93 was a pretty bad year for the HK movie industry as I remember. Rating:2.5/5

Reviewed by: cathy in dc Date: 06/27/2001 I enjoyed this movie. It's a fun romp. The special effects are not great. The magic crane and the giant green snake are just silly. However, the movie was well subtitled and I enjoyed the performances of both Joey Wong and Maggie Cheung as the two snake women. The movie did a good job in terms of capturing the way two snakes would move about if they suddenly took on human form. The movie does change tone somewhat abruptly towards the end. Basically, if the idiot monk had learned his lesson after worngly putting the spider monk under the giant stone temple, he wouldn't have caused the destruction of his ashram and the entire village at the end of the movie, when he fights the two snake women, whom he himself had initially acknowledged as good (and who just wanted to marry and settle down). As he himself says "I have committed fault after virtue." Understatement of the year. Overall, worth watching.

Reviewed by: Trigger Date: 05/30/2001 Summary: Rent it If you can find it for rent... you should just rent this film. It started out pretty good, but the second act was stupid and the third act just got better and better until it went into self-destruct mode. Maggie was charming and beautiful in this film as Green Snake. Joey is just too much of a dork for me to take seriously - although she was decent in this as White Snake (heh - whitesnake)... The special effects weren't very special and the cinematography was just average for a Tsui Hark film. The story seemed like a Sex and Zen episode, but there was no porn. I liked the film ok, but it doesn't rank all that high compared to other films from that time (early 90's). I definitely think it's worth seeing once, but to suggest owning it would be criminal on my part. As far as I know, there's only 2 DVDs available for it and they are both cut from the same Laserdisc print. The Tai Seng version was a crappy transfer with tons of artifacts and blurry burned in subtitles that were too tiny to even see (when they weren't obscured by the fact that they were white on a white background half the time). Aside from those subtitle problems, in the last 10 minutes, they didn't even bother to subtitle a third of what was being said. Really annoying. The sound was mono as well. Seen on: Tai Seng DVD Ratings: Movie - 6.2/10 DVD Presentation - 2/10 (one point for at least being out on DVD and another point for being widescreen) Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 05/27/2001 Summary: Absolutely beautiful. One of Tsui Hark's most ambitious films Green Snake is an absolutely beautiful film... the sets and the cinematography are just amazing. The story is compelling too, and the direction intriguingly stylised. Definitely one of Tsui Hark's most ambitious works, and Maggie Cheung has never looked sexier! Reviewer Score: 9

Reviewed by: indraswara Date: 10/27/2000 Not quite full performance of Maggie Cheung as the Green Snake, since I only enjoy her snake dance at the opening part. That's all. Everything you need from an Asian woman, she had. For an act that saluted by critics, none.

Reviewed by: leh Date: 12/09/1999 A quite odd movie, strangely paced and at varying times either gorgeous or terrible to look at. Doesn't work as (and wasn't intended to be) an action extravaganza, but also fails as a serious film. Still worth having a look at.

Reviewed by: Brad.Daniels Date: 12/09/1999 The snake effects weren't as bad as the Crane effects in The Magic Crane, though the latter is a better movie. I quite enjoyed this film, though the ending was a bit of a downer, and the fanatical monk characters were annoying. Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: spinali Date: 12/08/1999 Summary: NULL Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong play the half-humans Green Snake and Son Ching, two beauties who live in an open-air house on the outskirts of town. Son Ching, through 1000 years of discipline, has begun to evolve out of her reptilian heritage to become a human being; Green Snake has only been practicing for 500 years, and feels more comfortable slithering around, or catching vermin with her two-foot tongue. Fa-Hai (Zhao Wen Zhou), self-righteous Buddhist monk with extraordinary powers (and a bad case of spiritual materialism), proves to be their greatest adversary. Furious that Con Ching or Green Snake would dare transgress natural law and take on human form, he takes upon himself the role of enforcer -- a kind of metaphysical traffic cop. His lack of love leads to the destruction of his own ashram and a nearby town. (3.5/4) [Reviewed by Steve Spinali] Reviewer Score: 8

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