Bai she chuan shuo

The Sorcerer and The White Snake is visually stunning as well as breathtakingly inspiring. This movie is more than CGI, computer rendering, or even cinematic location. It's about love. The power that love wields between two people who are in love and the control, twist, and even anguish that love sometimes will exert over us. Yes, the fight scenes were well filmed. Additionally the colors exploded violently from frame to frame, it was exceptional. I would be inconsistent if I however did not point out that if this film had a major Hollywood studio budget. Some of the CGI scenes would have looked slightly less choppy, and perhaps more money, would have helped to further polish an already outstanding movie. The Sorcerer and The White Snake is a rare gem, it is a love story told through art. I found the water sections in the opening of the movie simply stunning. Art and love translated through film, simply exceptional.

I hope you will take my advice and grab a copy of this as soon as you are done reading my review. I promise you, this movie will not disappoint in any way shape or form.

When I saw the preview to The Sorcerer and the White Snake I knew I had to see it. If you're a fan of movies like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", "House of Flying Daggers" and "A Chinese Love Story" then you need to give this movie a go! The one fall back in this movie is the CGI work, but I'm sure the producers are also less than happy. The movie had AMAZING potential if the special effects were at a high production value. With that being said, the story line is heart warming and easy to fall in love it, a classic tale of the forbidden love between humans and demons. At the end of this movie you could feel a slight bit of joy and sadness rolled up into one.

Make an effort to look past the bad CGI (which mind you could still be a lot worse), and you could have a movie in your library that you fully intend to revisit.

This is another adaptation of the White Snake myth of forbidden love between humans and demons but the good news is that it is hyped up with so much CGI wizardry that it looks almost like an "Avatar" clone, complete with copious amounts of 'wire-fu'. However, the bad news is that director Tony Chin sees it fit to keep the film's IQ at kiddie level with talking mice and clownish rabbits.

What's more is that Jet Li, obviously the star attraction here, is caught in a difficult position, having to mouth silly lines and perform unintentionally funny stunts instead of actual kungfu.

Like in A Chinese Ghost Story, we have a tale of young herbalist Xu Xian (Raymond Lam) and a thousand-year-old snake demon (played by Eva Huang Shengyi). It all starts with an underwater kiss with which the sexy snake incarnate rescues the hapless young man from drowning. After that, she continues to pursue him, against the advice of her close friend Green Snake (Charlene Choi) - until he agrees to marry her.

The match is against the law of nature and sorcerer Fa Hai (Jet Li) of Jinshang temple has sworn to trap and slay all such demons before they wreak havoc on the villagers. Trouble is, the kind-hearted Xu Xian has befriended the sorcerer monk and slaying the White Snake would hurt her innocent hubby.

The spectacular opening sequences of a battle between Fa Hai and the Ice Witch (Vivian Hsu) gives us a taste of what is to come. One thing we can be sure of is that Tony Chin spares no expense over the sets and period setting that provide a deliciously rich fantasy just like those of Jame Cameron's "Avatar" and Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland". The animation is a bit tacky though, considering how far CGI has gone today.

Still, the make-or-break factor in any romance flick is the performance of its leads and here Eva Huang and Raymond Lam are not just a good-looking couple but they managed to look like young lovers. Juxtaposed against them are the ghoulish and comical relationship between Charlene Choi's Green Snake and Wen Zhang's novie monk Nen Reng who gets 'converted' to the other side early in the movie. Other stars to look out for include Chapman To, Miriam Yeung and Lam Suet who seem to be having fun playing childish farmyard characters like chickens and rabbits. Nothing to be excited with this CGI extravaganza with Jet Li in it. (limchangmoh.blogspot.com)

Although Jet Li is essentially the main actor, Raymond Lam steals the show (in my opinion) as herb picker Xu Xian. The beautiful Shengyi Huang is well cast as White Snake and the chemistry between Raymond and Shengyi is wonderful. This is a love story set against a fantasy action adventure backdrop, and the genres blend beautifully. The action is just as amazing as the love story. I did find some scenes to be a bit slapstick silly, but in general this CGI-heavy film was quite fascinating. The flood scene in the final act was truly awesome. I did find the ending a bit overuse of CGI to a point where I almost lost what was actually happening, but the love story portrayed by Raymond and Shengyi swiftly pulled me back to their reality and it was simply spectacular. This is a very imaginative film.

After reading some lukewarm and scalding reviews, I was going to pass on this movie. I'm so glad I didn't. While I see the flaws that some reviewers point out, the CGI and fantasy settings were so beautiful and Jet Li's fight sequences so breathtakingly spectacular, that I loved this movie!! Jet Li played the powerful sorcerer-monk to perfection with that inner-calm thing he does so well. The magical and majestic action sequences had me cheering and rewinding several times. They were fresh, unusual and epic. This is now one of my favorite Jet Li movies and I'm already a huge fan.

I loved the fabled-love story thing as well. The characters were likable, including the green and white snakes and I found myself rooting for them. As a chick who loves romantic, fantasy martial arts, this was a beautiful blend of what I love most in a movie.

Just beautiful!