Review: The Sorcerer and the White Snake

Cast: Jet Li, Shengyi Huang, Raymond Lam
Director: Ching Siu-tung
Country: China | Hong Kong
Genre: Action | Fantasy
Official Trailer: Here

Editor’s Note: The Sorcerer and the White Snake opened in limited release on February 8th

What the marketing department were thinking when they made the poster for The Sorcerer and the White Snake is anyone’s guess. Proudly displaying a typical example of what the film’s few defenders have kindly described as “stylised” CGI—a careful euphemism for “incomplete”, or perhaps just plain “bad”—the one-sheet sees the latter character of the title encircling the former, portrayed by Jet Li with a stoic grimace that just about manages to disguise the awkward posture required of an actor posed before a green screen awaiting later insertion of a large serpent. It’s far from a resounding endorsement of the film’s visual quality, hardly a promising start for what is essentially an effects-laden fantasy epic.

…the film plays like a loose adaptation of a much-beloved fantasy novel that, its liberties considered, will only be comprehensible to those who’ve read the book. Only in this case, of course, there is no book, and without it no fans to make sense of the loose assemblage of scenes the movie mistakenly considers a plot.

Inspired by a traditional Chinese folk tale, the film melds ancient fantasy with modern blockbuster excess, piecing together disparate plot threads to construct a fast-paced, action-heavy narrative around Li, whose role as the powerful head of a monastery of demon-fighting sorcerers only just about technically qualifies as a lead. More of the film is given to Xu Xian, a herbalist who becomes the object of affection for the shape-shifting serpentine demon of the title when she rescues him from drowning. Thus begins a strange journey through an ill-defined world of magical creatures and powerful artefacts; the film plays like a loose adaptation of a much-beloved fantasy novel that, its liberties considered, will only be comprehensible to those who’ve read the book. Only in this case, of course, there is no book, and without it no fans to make sense of the loose assemblage of scenes the movie mistakenly considers a plot.

The bizarre barrage of battle scenes and character types that break out from this indiscernible story to paint the screen in bright colours and fast movement attest a movie that refuses to play by any rules but its own, which it makes up as it

goes along and then proceeds to ignore. At once a fantasy epic and intimate romance, its love story completely undermines the basic dynamic between good and evil upon which the entire central conflict is pinned, making neither its intended protagonists nor antagonists identifiable as such amidst the incessant onslaught of subpar CGI sequences of embarrassed actors haplessly interacting with empty space. A tacky third-act scene is the film’s finest effort at rectifying this dizzying imbalance, not nearly enough to make any less maddening its confused conclusion where sympathetic characters act as evil bad guys for no reason more than the necessity for another battle scene.

Jet Li’s impressive ability to remain straight-faced when spouting lines the like of “You are the quintessence of benevolence. Take this spirit dagger as a token of thanks” is occasion for an Oscar nomination at least…

Its positively inane characterisation and baffling pacing considered, it’s a minor miracle that director Ching Siu-tung should manage to make of his film something vaguely enjoyable, the movie’s proud lunacy allowing a ready appreciation of the wild concoction of fantasy elements it chucks at the audience. Ching has a fondness for a martial arts-inspired set-piece, giving us plentiful instances of Li twirling an imposing staff to deflect some colourful deluge of magical spells. Alas, what small good will the unrestrained mania of the better sequences earns is sharply lost on the unimaginative imitation of the remainder, one sequence in particular a shameless shot-for-shot reconstruction of Gandalf’s subterranean Balrog battle in The Two Towers that might, were it not for the many other cues taken directly from Jackson’s trilogy, have passed for homage.

Jet Li’s impressive ability to remain straight-faced when spouting lines the like of “You are the quintessence of benevolence. Take this spirit dagger as a token of thanks” is occasion for an Oscar nomination at least; he and his fellow cast can only be pitied as they plod about the plotless CGI-heavy landscape of The Sorcerer and the White Snake. Such a breadth of fantasy mythology—albeit entirely unexplored, in this instance—and special effects—without which nothing would happen, with which very little does either—worthy of a console perhaps two generations out of date make the experience of this movie rather a lot like watching a young child play an RPG: there’s fun to be had and a decent story to be told, if only someone a little more sensible was in control.

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Ronan Doyle

Director of Movies On Demand & Sr. Staff Film Critic at Next Projection

Ronan Doyle is an Irish undergraduate film student and freelance critic, whose work has appeared on Indiewire, FilmLinc, Film Ireland, FRED Film Radio, and otherwhere. When not watching movies, reading about movies, writing about movies, or thinking about movies, he can be found talking about movies on Twitter. He is fuelled by tea and has heard of sleep, but finds the idea frightfully silly.

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