The story is set in the late Tang Dynasty, when the emperor was obsessed with seeking immortality and the state teacher was forced to catch snakes in lieu of taxes, in order to use the snakes as a guide to cultivate immortality. In order to get a chance to survive, the snake tribe sends the snake demon Xiao Bai to assassinate the emperor, but he fails to do so and loses his memory. With the help of Xu Xuan, Xiao Bai tries to recover his memory, and along the way, they go through several dangers and slowly develop a love affair. By chance, Xiaobai regains her memory, but finds out that she is a snake demon, so she rejects Xu Xuan on the grounds that humans and demons are different. In order to be with Xiaobai, Xu Xuan turned himself into a demon and went to look for Xiaobai, but found that Xiaobai had turned into a giant python. And by this time the duel between the snake tribe and the state master has begun, ambition, intrigue, love and human nature intertwined, but in the end is an empty, everything is back to square one. But the story continues, love is like the red thread of the moon elder, invisible, untouchable, but tightly connected to the hearts of Xiao Bai and Xu Xuan, five hundred years later, the two meet at West Lake and start a new story.
In terms of plot, the movie is about the past life love between White Snake and Xu Xuan (the male lead in the original “White Snake” is named Xu Xuan instead of Xu Xian). The main plot line tells the story of the state master who, under the slogan of eliminating evil for the people, actually mobilizes the people to catch a large number of snakes in order to suck the aura of snakes. The snake clan girl Bai Suzhen, hereinafter referred to as Xiao Bai, entrusted by the clan, went to assassinate the master. But there is a disparity in strength, and Bai is knocked into a waterfall, where she meets A-hsuan, a snake-hunting boy. After losing his memory, Xiao Bai and A Xuan live carefree in the village for a while and have a secret love affair. But the good times do not last long, the state master’s forces and the clan’s suspicion, so that Xiaobai and A Xuan again and again encounter dangerous situations, after repeated difficulties, the two people’s feelings are getting deeper and deeper, but Xiaobai is a demon, A Xuan is a human, human and demon different path, where will they go?
The whole drama can be opened in the form of a youth film plus a magic film, both in the form of love in the youth film, but also in the form of snakes, gods and ghosts in the magic film. Both in accordance with the traditional Chinese story, but also have their own imagination and adaptation, and the change is quite good. The downside is that the main male and female relationship development is too fast, not long before holding hands, kissing, naked together, probably because of time constraints did not have time to spread.
And then the animation itself. Many images are very beautiful and spectacular, animated characters, realistic details of clothes, hair, fighting scenes are also very grand. The shortcoming is that the expressions of the male and female protagonists are a little stiff, if the expressions can be a little richer, that is definitely a plus; and that is, the real body of the white snake is a snake, but the shape of the movie is very much like a dragon, is also a little unconventional.
The imagination is great, borrowing and adding some of the best elements of anime. For example, the fox demon’s grocery store, reminding me of the stunning “Thousand and One”. There is also a sexy fox demon from the second yuan, fragrant. Chinese elements, traditional culture is also quite well integrated into the perfect integration of the “snake catcher said”, and the five elements of gossip and so on. Human attitude, values, criticism of feudalism are very positive.
The most moving part of the movie for me was when the end credits sounded “White Sutra under Qingcheng Mountain”. The main character Xu Xuan re-entered the reincarnation, the last life of white snake and he wasted, this life to meet again, in the West Lake broken bridge. When Xu Xian turned around and said, “You look familiar,” Qing looked at her and smiled, and she knew that her scene with Xu Xian had just begun.
This is a very popular song from Zhao Ya Zhi’s version of The Legend of the New White Lady. I never liked it because I thought it was too rustic, like the song of a village girl, pulling the sound of a mian. But after watching the “white snake” back suddenly feel that this song than the original 10,000 times better, single song cycle seven or eight times. Together with the lovers who have gone through the risk of death, the reunion of the world after the reincarnation of life and death, no deep embrace, no bawling to release the emotions, but ready to tell the pleasure to talk about love again. There is no magnificent sensational orchestral music, but this one reminiscent of killing. Too romantic too evocative.
