Green Snake

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This article is about the Hong Kong film Green Snake. For the North American Green snake, see Opheodrys.
Green Snake
Directed by Tsui Hark
Produced by Tsui Hark
Ng See Yuen
Written by Lilian Lee (novel)
Tsui Hark
Starring Maggie Cheung
Joey Wong
Vincent Zhao
Wu Hsing-Kuo
Release date(s) 1993
Running time 99 minutes
Country Hong Kong Hong Kong
Language Cantonese

Green Snake (青蛇, Chinese literal title: The Teal/Green Snake) is a 1993 Hong Kong fantasy film made by Tsui Hark. It is the adaptation of a novel of the same title by Lilian Lee.

The novel itself is a variation of a Chinese folk tale Madame White Snake, where Lillian Lee tells the story from the perspective of Xiaoqing, the Green Snake, who normally plays a minor role behind the main character Bai Suzhen, the White Snake. As the title suggests, the movie also features Xiaoqing as the main character.

[edit] Plot

Two snake spirits have been training for many centuries to take human form and experience the love, freedom and wisdom that is supposedly only available to humans. White Snake (Joey Wong) is the more experienced one and proceeds to get engaged with local scholar Hsui Xien (Wu Hsing-Kuo), with whom she plans to have a child who would complete her passage into the mortal realm. Green Snake (Maggie Cheung) is the younger and more impulsive of the two sisters and she is not yet quite sure about the benefits of the human world. The two snakes move into their magically created house and start a successful medical practice in the town.

Their enemies are a buffoonish Taoist and an overzealous Buddhist monk (Vincent Zhao) who make various attempts to banish them from the human world. The monk thinks of himself as a keeper of the natural order of the world and is very prejudiced against spiritual beings seeking to improve themselves. He brings things to a head when he abducts White's husband from the human/spirit mixed marriage into his religious reeducation camp–styled temple.

[edit] Cast and roles

[edit] External links

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Tsui Hark filmography
Director
The Butterfly Murders (1979) • Dangerous Encounter - 1st Kind (1980) • We're Going to Eat You (1980) • All the Wrong Clues (1981) • Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) • Shanghai Blues (1984) • Aces Go Places 3 (1984) • Working Class (1985) • Peking Opera Blues (1986) • A Better Tomorrow 3 (1989) • The Master (1989) • The Swordsman (1990) • King of Chess (1991) • Once Upon a Time in China (1991) • The Raid (1991) • Once Upon a Time in China II (1992) • Green Snake (1993) • Once Upon a Time in China III (1993) • The Lovers (1994) • Once Upon a Time in China V (1994) • Love in the Time of Twilight (1995) • The Blade (1995) • The Chinese Feast (1995) • Tristar (1996) • Double Team (1997) • Knock Off (1998) • Time and Tide (2000) • The Legend of Zu (2001) • Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002) • Seven Swords (2005) • The Warrior (2006) • Missing (2008) • All About Women (2008) • Detective Dee (2010)
Collaborating director
The Banquet (1991) • Twin Dragons (1992) • Triangle (2007)
Writer/producer
Collaborators
Related media


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