Green Snake

 

Green Snake

1993

Director- Tsui Hark

Cast- Maggie Cheung, Joey Wong, Vincent Zhao, Wu Hsing-kuo

            Based on a Chinese folk tale, Green Snake is the story of two snake spirits that take the forms of beautiful young women.

White Snake (Joey Wong) is 1,000 years old and seeks out a relationship with a local school teacher whom she views as a nice and honest man. White’s aspiration is to move along the karmic wheel and become a human and sees her relationship with the school teacher as part of that journey.

Green Snake (Maggie Cheung) is much younger (only 500 years old) and as such is impetuous and flirty. Not interested in being human, she still enjoys being a snake. She sets her sights on a young, powerful Buddhist monk. White warns Green about the folly of this, as the monk has little tolerance for non-humans and is a powerful demon hunter.

White pursues her romance with the school teacher and Green becomes jealous for what she doesn’t have. She flirts with the school teacher, creating tension between the couple and her sister. What’s worse, White has hidden her true nature from the school teacher who doesn’t seem to have what it takes to handle the truth, forcing White to live a lie to hold on to love.

Wanting a romance of her own, Green decides to turn up the heat with the monk. He indulges her flirtation, believing his willpower can resist her erotic charms. He fails miserably, and instead of accepting responsibility for his own weakness, he turns his anger on the snake sisters, vowing to destroy them.

At first glance, Green Snake is similar to the Chinese Ghost Story trilogy. Tsui Hark produced those films and directed Green Snake. Joey Wong stars in all of them. All take place in a fantasy feudal Chinese setting. But the similarities are all superficial.

Chinese Ghost Story is an optimistic story, essentially saying that love can conquer all, even death. Green Snake, on the other hand, tells us that love doesn’t have much of a chance against prejudice, fear, and religious zeal. The demon hunting monk is as single minded and self-righteous as any European witch hunter.

The hope for growth, and it’s pain, is also a central theme. Early in the story, the monk comes across a spider that has been working hard to reincarnate as a human. The monk dismisses the spider’s efforts and condemns it to restart its work on the karmic wheel. As White becomes more human, the gap between she and Green becomes apparent. A wedge is driven between the sisters through no one’s fault.

Beyond its central themes, Tsui Hark spends a lot of effort constructing beautiful visual images. The special effects aren’t nearly as convincing as Chinese Ghost Story, but Green Snakes’ sets are vivid and almost other worldly. Chinese Ghost Story, by virtue of its story, was set in dark, gloomy surroundings. Green Snake is quite bright and vibrant, which, in the end, just serves to highlight the somber message it is juxtaposed against.

Green Snake isn’t as entertaining as Chinese Ghost Story (which is, in my opinion, the best thing to have come from the hey day of Hong Kong cinema with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 other films). Green Snake is a harder film to watch because of its somber message. But it is thought provoking and moving and worth a view for any fan of folk horror, Eastern mythology, or classic Hong Kong cinema.

Want more? Check out a review of the entire Chinese Ghost Story saga here: