The Sorcerer and the White Snake (白蛇传说之法海) (2011) is a Hong Kong movie based on the Chinese Legend of the White Snake.Synopsis from GSC Movies: White Snake (Eva Huang), in the incarnation of a beautiful lady, falls in love with a young herbalist Xu Xian (Raymond Lam). With the help of Green Snake (Charlene Choi), she ventured into the human world and got married to Xu Xian. In a twist of event, Fa Hai (Jet Li), a sorcerer from Jin Shan Temple, crosses path with White Snake. A fiery battle is about to begin...
To cut the long story short, this movie is basically about a beautiful white snake demon of 1,000 years who falls in love with a mortal and everything ends not well as expected.
What's Jet Li's role in this movie? He's the head monk, the sorcerer or demon hunter who hunts down every single demon that harms people in China. To do that, he should be performing all his awesome kungfu moves, right? To my utter disappointment, this movie is a whole load of crap. Jet Li is basically moving along with too much CGI effects.
I have to agree with this review and here are some of the excerpts:
- The reel hero is the computer wizardry – the generous display of the latest gimmicks in CGI and the preposterous action stunts that will leave you gaping if you are looking forward to enjoying a real movie and not some super duper computer game.
- The movie has almost every frame crammed with not-so-stylized visual effects. Sadly, for a trademark Jet Li action genre, it is yet to have a single compelling action sequence. The fights are lack luster, so to speak.
I'm adding three more points:
- Chemistry between Eva Huang and Raymond Lam is too weak. I couldn't sense intense love and longing between them. Their so-called love is so rushed and forced that I couldn't bring myself to pity their sad (supposed to be) fate.
- Charlene Choi (as the green snake demon) and Wen Zhang (as the bloodsucking bat demon) are dispensable sidekicks. They are supposed to be the movie's comedic relief but the entire movie is already a joke, so their existence in the movie, sorry to say, can be discounted.
- Talking animals? For heaven's sake, I'm not watching a kid's show, am I? They are the most annoying thing I find in the movie.
I'd advise you not to watch this movie unless you're an avid computer game player, especially those Chinese games.
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