Paige Bandera Overall, The Sorcerer and the White Snake was an enjoyable movie due its "forbidden love" theme. The romance between Susu, a snake demon, and Xu Xian, a mortal, was sweetly portrayed. Unfortunately, the movie follows the pattern of most forbidden love stories by ending in a way that is bittersweet at best. Love does not conquer all obstacles in this movie. Additionally, those who love fantasy and the supernatural will not be entirely disappointed. The movie has several types of supernatural beings; however, the portrayal of these beings may be disappointing to some. There is a lot of CGI that can be overwhelming. Less CGI and a little more imagination would have made the supernatural elements of the movie less cheesy. I do not typically watch movies for their action scenes so I have very little to say on that front. Perhaps the action lovers will watch this movie solely because Jet Li is in it. The movie does its best to cater to the romantics and those seeking a little more than just a love story. It is worth looking into, especially for those who enjoy romance.

siderite So many people reviewed this as bad and I will be damned if I understand why. The story is that of an old Chinese legend (well, a more modern interpretation), the actresses are very beautiful and the acting, for what it's worth, is not bad either. To bash a movie because the CGI is a little choppy and Jet Li fights magically instead of kicking behinds seems the height of triviality.The Legend of the White Snake starts a long time ago, way before there was a written version. The original is quite different from the modern version as well, being a horror story about a demon tricking a human to fall in love with her and her jealous demon buddies are doing everything in their power to break them up. At least this is what I got from Wikipedia. The film, though, presents it as a total love story where the White Snake and her sister are benevolent demons who visit the human world and eventually fall for two guys. The natural order, represented by the Buddhist monk Fahai, a non compromising demon hunter, doesn't allow this type of union and eventually it all escalates into a bad CGI extravaganza.I thought the morality of the story was a little bit confusing, but complex, worthy of a script. Nothing is completely black and white and in the end the message is tolerance, even if not everything turns out OK. This complexity has kept my eyes glued to the screen until the end. Yes, the CGI could have been better, but who really cares about that?Bottom line: I liked it. Popularizes a Chinese legend that I knew nothing about, shows people that a film can have a complex story that is not just black and white, stars really cute Chinese ladies and in end was quite entertaining for me. No masterpiece, but really better than average.

bpsnknm01 This was a good action packed film with stunning special effects and CGI. The film featured a love struck demon snake who falls in love with a mortal man. It has monks who battle against the evil demons. It features an epic battle between good and evil while at the same time you feel empathy for the evil because it is motivated by love. It is not a martial arts film by any means but more of a love story that just happens to have monks who know some form of martial arts but the rely heavily on supernatural powers given to them by a deity or higher power. Even though it was in Mandarin with captions, it was still a good film for anyone who enjoys foreign films and enjoys watching a variety of films from many cultures.

Victor YC Ong This is a touching story of the 'Romeo and Juliet' kind...albeit with a major fantasy twist and an ending that is bittersweet. Strongly recommended for anyone who loves love stories, plus a heady combination of martial arts, magical powers, fairies, vampires and beautiful cinematography. Award-winning movie superstar Jet Li plays the role of a stern but compassionate master monk battling to save humans from being devoured by demons. The master monk tries to protect a naive TCM physician (played by Hong Kong's hunky star Raymond Lam) from a thousand-year-old White Snake (Eva Huang) who had transformed herself into a beautiful woman, and mayhem ensues.Speaking of which, the CGI and other special effects utilized in the movie are simply gorgeous. The sense of realism derived from this ancient fairytale is enlivened by the use of modern cinematic tools. Too bad there isn't a 3D stereoscopic version...sniff! Apart from the super dooper Kungfu moves (of course), the massive scenes involving tsunami, storms and other super forces of nature conjured up during battles between the master monk and the various demons (including vampires) are show-stoppers in themselves already. And, we have not even included the stellar cast of actors and actresses, ranging from Eva Huang (Stephen Chow's Kungfu Hustle), Wen Zhang (Stephen Chow's record-breaking box office hit Journey to the West - Conquering the Demons), Charlene Choi (Hong Kong's highly popular pop duo Twins) to Vivian Hsu (Taiwan's well-known singer, model and actress).For fans of The Forbidden Kingdom (Jackie Chan and Jet Li), Reign of Assassins (directed by John Woo, title song by BBC World Music award winner Sa Ding Ding, and starring Michelle Yeoh) and Storm Warriors (directed by Pang Brothers and starring Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng), you shall be delighted by this fantastic fantasy movie...pardon the pun.See the extended trailer (over 6 mins) on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKNxI0IqAfM