Green Snake: Bullshitting for the Laws of Heaven!

They say everything’s bigger in Texas. In researching this article, I discovered that Tsui Hark, one of the biggest names in the Hong Kong film industry, actually studied at UT-Austin, graduating in 1975 after a stint at SMU. Coincidence? Probably, but an interesting bit of trivia for central Texas cinephiles nonetheless.

Tsui Hark has been referred to as the “Spielberg of Hong Kong Cinema,” with a career spanning over 40 years as writer, director, producer, and actor (he played a minor comedic role in the Michelle Yeoh vehicle Yes, Madam! which screened at Weird Wednesday last month). Hark helped pioneer the “heroic bloodshed” action subgenre as producer of the John Woo classics A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. As a director, he almost single-handedly birthed the modern Hong Kong special effects industry with Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain (which in turn inspired John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China). He heeded the siren call of Hollywood in the 1990s, delivering two forgettable Jean Claude Van Damme vehicles (including the one with Dennis Rodman) before returning to Hong Kong to make ever more spectacular Chinese historical epics.

One of Hark’s lesser known films, Green Snake (1993) is a thrilling example of the xianxia genre.  Similar to the wuxia action-fantasy style popularized by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, xianxia (“immortal hero”) narratives focus more on supernatural elements and themes of transcendence, spirituality, and reincarnation.

It’s hard to describe what Green Snake is about, and impossible to relay the viewing experience. Straight from the opening credits, we are dropped into a sublime fantasy world where humans and shape-shifting animal demons (translated as “evils” in the subtitles) exist in eternal conflict. Attempting to learn the ways of human love and desire, a pair of demon snake sisters, White and Green, shape-shift to human form and set out to seduce a girl-crazy Taoist scholar. The demon’s ability to shape-shift is accomplished only after centuries of strenuous effort, and is portrayed as an upward path to enlightenment through experience.  

But a fanatic demon-hunting monk, Fat-Hoi, is having none of it. In an early scene, he captures a fun-loving spider-demon posing as human with the raucous battle cry  “Bo-ye-ba-la-hung!”  The spider begs for mercy–he has worked for 200 years to reincarnate up to a “kind human” form—but the monk imprisons him with the dismissive line, “Evil is always evil.”  Fat-Hoi initially appears to be the hero of the story, but soon enough we realize he’s kind of a dick.  As the film progresses, the snake sisters cross paths with this self-appointed monster hunter and must fight for their lives, calling him out for his righteousness: “Right or wrong is always unclear. Your heart is not pure, monk!”

Armed with a small city’s worth of massive sets and an army of fog machines, Hark conjures an expressionistic spirit-world incomparable to western fantasy films.  Green Snake’s entertainment value is powered equally by wacky practical special effects and broad physical comedy–witness the snake sisters’ twisty-bendy strut as they adjust to their unfamiliar human forms.  Maggie Cheung, who captivated Western art house audiences a few years later in Olivier Assayas’ meta-thriller Irma Vep, shines in her original form as a bona fide Hong Kong superstar, convincing the viewer she is an actual fucking snake without any makeup or effects. (And she only looks a little silly when called on to writhe around in a goofy snake costume.)

In its second half, Green Snake delves into a surprisingly frank exploration of the schism between the spiritual and secular worlds, hinging on the monk’s aversion to sexuality as a hindrance to spiritual practice.  Amidst some truly wild wire-fu mayhem, the snake sisters begin to question whether the experience of human love is worth the turmoil and tribulation that comes with it.  The ending is hardly triumphant, chasing the sugar-rush action scenes with a remarkably bitter resolution.  Cheung steals the film with the line: “You’re bullshitting for the laws of heaven!”  

As with HRFC’s previous Hong Kong screening The Cat, expect charmingly obtuse translated subtitles (“You laugh like laughing!”), broad slapstick, and absolutely berserk action sequences.  The music is really good too. Bo-ye-ba-la-hung!