Early on in the new Chinese animated feature White Snake, which Fantasia 2019 screened this month, protagonist Blanca (voiced by Zhang Zhe) finds herself in a strange, shabby hut in a remote village. She’s not sure how she got there; she’s not sure of anything, actually. Her memories are gone. She steps out of the hut and takes in the view of her surroundings, a beautifully animated mountain range in autumn, dotted with red trees. The rich combination of CGI and hand-painting drew me in, and I lit up just as Blanca does on screen.
Of course, I also couldn’t help but wonder, “So is this where they end up going in Frozen 2?”
This wouldn’t be the first comparison I would make to the Disney behemoth while watching White Snake, directed by Amp Wong. Like Elsa, Blanca is a beautiful young woman with mysterious powers that she doesn’t fully understand and can’t control caught up in a world that shames her for being different. White Snake’s source material just happens to predate Frozen’s by roughly two centuries.
Based on a Chinese legend first fictionalized during the Ming Dynasty, White Snake follows Blanca, a woman with mystical magical powers who loses her memory after attempting to assassinate the Dark General with an extremely powerful jade hairpin. She winds up in Snakecatcher Village, a town with an economy entirely based on catching snakes for said Dark General, who believes they are the key to gaining ultimate power. Here, Blanca meets Xuan (Yang Tianxiang), a snake catcher who is afraid of snakes and gives off very Hermey the Elf vibes with his misfit status and affinity for herbal medicine and Chinese astrology. Together, they set out on a journey to find Blanca’s true identity.
Along the way, they run into characters such as Fox Spirit, a sexy two-faced peddler of magical jade objects, and Blanca’s fierce but loving sister, Verta. Blanca starts to reveal more of her powers, instinctively using her abilities to save Xuan and his talking dog, Doudou, from danger. Eventually, she reveals herself to be a shape-shifting snake demon, and she finds herself caught in the crossfire of a war between her fellow demons and the humans who desire their power.
We’ve seen many stories of self-discovery and star-crossed lovers in animation over the last three decades, so the creators of White Snake are swimming in familiar waters thematically, particularly for Western audiences. What sets this film apart, though, is its deep roots in Chinese culture, from the story’s source material to references to eight trigrams of the I Ching. Not all of these references will resonate with Western viewers, but perhaps, like me, some will be inspired to do further research into these traditions after watching the film.
Many films, both animated and live-action, have used the device of memory loss to drive their protagonist’s journey of self-discovery, to varying results (see Anastasia, Finding Dory, etc.). Unfortunately, in White Snake, Blanca’s personality seems to have been erased along with her memories. She’s a bit of a blank slate (pun entirely intended) and betrays few emotions beyond concern for most of the film, making it difficult for the audience to connect with her. We see her romance with Xuan mostly through his eyes, and we’re not entirely sure what he sees in her beyond a beautiful fellow outcast.
The film also has several villains on both sides of the human/demon divide. This “both sides”-ism may be truer to life, but in an animated film that runs under two hours, it makes it a bit difficult to know who to root for. If either the Dark General or the Snake Master were further developed earlier on in the film, this could have been an interesting take on a classic conflict. Instead, we don’t really get to see either villain until the very end of the film, when they’re both in Peak Bad Guy Mode; I found myself scrolling through my own memories of the last hour, trying to make sense of this final battle.
Some more adult situations (a steamy-for-animation love scene in a temple, a gag involving lost genitalia) give the film more of a PG-13 vibe than most Western animated films. This was honestly a bit refreshing as someone used to more sanitized animated fare, but it’s worth noting as the film has yet to receive an MPAA rating. For fans of beautiful CGI animation, Chinese mythology, and anxious talking dogs, White Snake makes for a great hour and a half. And don’t worry, there’s not a single singing snowman to be found.
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