Fei hap Siu bak lung

If you liked 'Cat and Mouse', this is a movie you're going to like. It is a great romantic comedy, where you inevitably fall in love with the characters. I enjoyed how they stepped it up a little with a touch of a different culture in it, but glad they didn't over do it. Cecilia Cheung is a funny woman with a lot of talent. I will watch movies that she's in, just because she's in them. She just seems so comfortable in the roles she plays, and humor seems to come easy to her. Her co-partner, who plays Chicken feathers, really brought his character out. I would like to watch more of his movies, because he played his role very well in this movie. He made quirky movements like a chicken, and a funky chicken at that, and was still quite charming and lovable. I don't know if people watch this because they are looking for action, but it is more of a romantic comedy with the bonus of action. The fighting style reminded me of the video game 'Mortal Combat', which I thought was pretty cool and can appreciate. I advise anyone watching this as a foreign film, to watch it with subtitles. Nothing beats hearing the tone of the real voices, and reading the subtitles is not difficult, but sometimes listening to voice-overs are. May I repeat...subtitles, subtitles, subtitles. I fear that some people did choose to have it sounded in English, which might have taken away from an otherwise good experience. This movie, and 'Cat and Mouse', are on my favorites list for romantic comedies.

I picked the DVD off the shelf with hopes of a Crouching Tiger/Hero/Flying Daggers experience..in fact, the DVD brief even makes a reference to this flick being in the same vein as House of Flying Daggers. Do not be fooled. The description given to this DVD on the case is misleading and will not aptly describe the movie whatsoever. With ancient Chinese musicians playing historical United States tunes on their flutes and references to McDonalds, this is nothing more than Mall Rats, Clueless and so much other teenage drivel pumped out by Hollywood studios wrapped in the beautiful costumes of the recent Chinese hits of late. The English dub is so fantastically painful that I found myself scrunching my eyes closed tighter than I thought possible. The plot does not suffer so much from the premise as it does from the horrible interactions of the characters who fill in the spaces between pointed scenes with American elementary school politics. Avoid this movie at all costs if you are looking for what is promised on the DVD description offered up by the distributor. Of course, if you are a 12 year old girl moving to china to go to school in a Chinese elementary school where all your peers will be imitating American culture learned from Saturday morning cartoons, then this is right up your alley.

Saw this on a double bill with "Springtime in a Small Town".

What an odd pairing!

"Springtime" was a deliberately paced, beautiful period piece and "The White Dragon" was an in-your-face laugh riot.

Another movie patron warned me that I would be wasting my time, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

Never laughed so hard at an Asian film!

A lot of sight gags but Francis Ng's over the top performance won me over. Cecilia Cheung does a credible job as his foil.

Certainly not "high art", but if you desire a little levity and silliness, you won't be disappointed.

The late afternoon-evening that I spent watching these two films is one of my favorite solo adult experiences, so they'll always hold a place in my heart.

What do you get if you take the uncomfortable teenage sense of humour of High School Musical and replace the music numbers with sword fights and martial arts choreography? Something very closely resembling The White Dragon, as it turns out.

And unfortunately this is not really a good thing. The very Western sense of humour clashes horribly with the Oriental aesthetic and ideals, making the whole experience more baffling and uncomfortable than funny or thought-provoking. More often than it feels more like a parody than an actual comedy, which I sense wasn't the intended goal of the film makers.

Aside from that, it's not even that good of a wuxia film. And not just because the immature jokes water the subject matter down, but because it lacks the grandeur and philosophy of a proper wuxia film. Again, more like a parody than a proper representation of its intended genre.

That's not to say that the actors are untalented or that the fight scenes are not fun to watch, but while it may look fine, it lacks soul and passion. Though admittedly this applies to most comedies nowadays, because it's so easy to gain cheap laughs by pandering to the lowest common denominator. In that regard this movie is no different from Hollywood's usual fare.

If you can stomach most comedies and would like to see one with a wuxia setting, then The White Dragon is worth checking out. But if you're looking for a traditional wuxia film or require some semblance of thought from your movies, then look elsewhere.

When I saw Cecilia Cheung for the first time in The Legend of Zu (2001), I was immediately struck (if not smitten) by her beauty, and I hurriedly started looking for her in other movies. After a bunch of modern-day dramas (slightly boring, truth be told), she's finally back in a fantasy martial arts epic, looking better than ever.

I was immensely thrilled to find White Dragon, and I was elated as I saw the first twenty minutes of it. There is so much cool action, so many great laughs; so much delightful entertainment.

The rest of the movie is not bad, but it slows down a great deal to focus on building up the love story. It has many of the same plot elements that other Asian movies of this type has; someone is blind (yet a superb kung fu master), the girl is betrothed to another but can't help falling in love with the hero (yes, just like in House of Flying Daggers), and the love story completely takes over the movie after about a half-hour opening of great action and comedy (the great 2002 comedy Chinese Odyssey had the exact same structure). This is a little disappointing; one would really have liked the action and comedy to be sustained throughout the movie.

However, it's still an uproariously entertaining, beautiful and funny movie, and the actors all do an amazing job.

8 out of 10.