Starring: Zeng Xiaomin, Wen Ruqing, Wang Yanfei, Zhu Hongxing Director: Zhang Xianfeng

CHINESE filmmakers have introduced a new subgenre to musical cinema, with the arrival of the release of “White Snake.” A gloriously unique mixture of traditional Cantonese stage opera, classic Chinese folklore, Disney princess musicals, and classic Chinese paintings, “White Snake” has won over audiences of all age.

“White Snake” has pocketed several awards on the festival circuit. It was named best artistic contribution at the 2019 Hainan Island International Film Festival, as well as best opera/musical at the Golden Maple International Festival of the same year. It was also honored People’s Choice Awards at the Pingyao International Film Festival in 2019. It has been nominated for the Golden Rooster Award and has been screened in many film festivals and film festivals at home and abroad.

“White Snake” is a thousand-year-old story about love that transcends time and place. Love that doesn’t care who or what you are. Love that endures. It is also about forgiveness and understanding, about redemption and transformation, and about the connections between the spiritual and natural worlds.

As the first Cantonese opera put on the silver screen in 4K panoramic sound format in China, the film is visually scrumptious and dreamlike. It combines opera and film, and presents classic bridge segments such as “Stealing the Immortal Grass” and “Water Manning Golden Mountain” on the opera stage with fantasy special effects.

Director Zhang Xianfeng said that when he was shooting the film, he had hoped to integrate the simplicity, white space and vigor pursued in Chinese ancient paintings while retaining the essence of traditional opera. The imagery of the movie does capture the look and purpose of Chinese landscape paintings, conveying the emotion and feeling of locations without concern for precise literal representation of real life. Think of a stage with elaborate but self-contained sets, surrounded by a fog as if each location exists in the clouds and momentarily reveals itself to the audience before slipping back beneath the veil and out of sight again.

Sword fights and battles become elaborate rhythmic sequences mixing martial arts and operatic interpretive dance. Throughout, the movements of cloth, of trees, and of clouds remind viewers of serpents, as does subtle imagery like the stones of a footpath leading to an oval gateway that — when the camera looks down on the path from above and then slowly raises to bring the gate into focus — creates the impression of a giant snake.

The camera moves around the stage and between the actors, yet always obeys the natural parameters of each individual location. In this way, the experience is like moving from the audience to the stage itself as an opera sings and dances its way all around you. There is a perpetual immediacy, rarely pulling back to observe events from afar. Proximity enhances the illusion, immersion making it easier to accept the fantastical and more entertaining to witness the most outrageous magical moments.

Several leading actors in the film are also famous on the Cantonese opera stage. Zeng Xiaomin, who plays Bai Suzhen, has won the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Drama.

The movie is now being screened in Shenzhen.

(SD-Agencies)