The Cinematheque

“Beautiful … Flirts with outright silliness, but it’s impossible to ignore the spell of erotic wonder [Green Snake] casts, and its deep ambivalence about the process of human socialization.”

Howard Hampton, Film Comment

A film full of mythic beasts, practical special effects, and colour filters, Green Snake is also a masterful allegory on the process of becoming human: contradictory desires, arbitrary ethics, and cycles of death and life. Drawn from one of the best-known Chinese folktales, the plot’s legendary outline allows Tsui Hark, at the peak of his powers of visual storytelling, to freely mix ironic, erotic, comedic, and awe-inspiring material from scene to scene. The interventionist practices of a Buddhist monk on the path to enlightenment (Vincent Zhao) meet a test of principles when Green Snake (Maggie Cheung) and White Snake (Joey Wong) fall to earth and assume human bodies. The film’s entrancing opening-credits song suggests that binary thought (romance and its absence, good and evil) produces faulty concepts, and, true to form, Tsui’s blend of tones allows his characters to choose both responsibility and pleasure—airborne chases, weather-controlling powers, and promises of eternal love.

In Cantonese with English subtitles

The opening-night screening of Green Snake will be preceded by a video introduction from film critic Sean Gilman.

“Perfect … Each composition has its own hue and texture … Wong and Cheung are mesmerizing, both coquettish but tough; the film’s use of largely feminine design in a traditionally masculine genre is ahead of its time.”

Kathleen Sachs, Cine-File

“Radiantly fantastical … Singular in its focus on lust and seduction, the film is layered with dualities, among them heterosexual and homosexual eroticism … Even though it sports a taunting grin, Green Snake has its moments of lyrical grace and poetic insight.”

Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle