THE WHITE-HAIRED WITCH OF LUNAR KINGDOM ★★★
(M) Selected release (103 minutes)
The figure at the centre of Jacob Cheung's martial arts-fantasy adventure, The White-haired Witch Of Lunar Kingdom, is a powerful, intriguing character. She features in a popular 1950s novel by Liang Yusheng, which has been adapted many times for film and TV.
The best known version is a classic Hong Kong film from 1993, Ronny Yu's The Bride With White Hair, starring Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin, which took many liberties with the story, and focused its attention on an intense, Romeo-and-Juliet relationship of obsession, memory and loss.
In Cheung’s version, this element is present, but it's incorporated into a more straightforward narrative of intrigue and political power play, with handsome costume and production design by Timmy Yip and Wu Jiakui.
The romantic hero, Zhuo Yihang (Huang Xiaoming), is chosen as the leader of the Wudang martial arts school, at a time of turmoil, when the school is under threat from political forces jockeying for power.
On a journey, Zhuo meets a mysterious, nameless figure (Fan Bingbing), a young woman raised by wolves who has become a warrior, a leader and a defender of the oppressed. She's distrustful of love ("the greatest poison") but he persists, bestows a name on her, and gives her a new identity.
Around these central figures, more conventional narratives accumulate: subsidiary characters, including an opportunistic general and a manipulative court official, all have a part to play in the a tale of loyalty, honour, exploitation and ambition. These themes are dealt with rather hastily, however. The martial arts action also feels a little truncated.
But it's the central relationship, the intense, transforming romantic encounter between warrior and witch, that is the least successful element of the film.
There's a nice tribute, at the end of the film, to a famous predecessor: Leslie Cheung's ballad from The Bride With White Hair plays over the final credits.
