Le sorcier et le serpent blanc

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.

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.

So many people reviewed this as bad and I will be damned if I understand why. The story is that of an old Chinese legend (well, a more modern interpretation), the actresses are very beautiful and the acting, for what it's worth, is not bad either. To bash a movie because the CGI is a little choppy and Jet Li fights magically instead of kicking behinds seems the height of triviality.

The Legend of the White Snake starts a long time ago, way before there was a written version. The original is quite different from the modern version as well, being a horror story about a demon tricking a human to fall in love with her and her jealous demon buddies are doing everything in their power to break them up. At least this is what I got from Wikipedia. The film, though, presents it as a total love story where the White Snake and her sister are benevolent demons who visit the human world and eventually fall for two guys. The natural order, represented by the Buddhist monk Fahai, a non compromising demon hunter, doesn't allow this type of union and eventually it all escalates into a bad CGI extravaganza.

I thought the morality of the story was a little bit confusing, but complex, worthy of a script. Nothing is completely black and white and in the end the message is tolerance, even if not everything turns out OK. This complexity has kept my eyes glued to the screen until the end. Yes, the CGI could have been better, but who really cares about that?

Bottom line: I liked it. Popularizes a Chinese legend that I knew nothing about, shows people that a film can have a complex story that is not just black and white, stars really cute Chinese ladies and in end was quite entertaining for me. No masterpiece, but really better than average.

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.

I simply loved the magical moves and powers displayed in this movie. I thought they were very imaginative and just spectacular! These kind of movies spark the imagination and, I believe, are more than worth watching, just for that. The fight sequences were some of the best I've ever seen. That alone would have been enough to make a very good movie. But the romance was perfect too! As I was watching it, I just kept thinking, "Oh my goodness, this is so awesome! This is the best movie I've ever seen, so far!" The only reason I give it a 9 and not 10/10 is the ending. So as not to spoil anything I will only say that I understand why they ended it the way they did, and in a way that is perfect for the kind of movie they were trying to make, so you might indeed like it, but that part was not perfect for me.