Moo's Review of Tsui Hark's Green Snake: Why Would Anybody Want To Be a Buddha If You Could Be a Magical Snake?

Green Snake! It's the year of the snake. So we're gonna talk about snakes! Actually I'm kidding, I watch this movie every summer. And I don't really love snakes. Or this year. Or the summer either. But I do love this movie. This is one of my favorite movies. So I'm gonna tell you about this movie!

I'll try not to put too many spoilers. Because maybe you'd watch it one day. But there will still be a fair bit of them. It ranks a 5 out of 10 in terms of amount of spoilers. I've blacked out the truly spoiler-city parts.

If you're up for a long reading of me talking about a ridiculous movie, then have a cup of tea, sit back and relax, I hope it'll be fun!

Oh and, more annoying disclaimer:

I can't really analyze this movie without explaining a little bit of Chinese history, which I don't understand too deeply. Not as deeply as a Chinese person who kept up with their classics all the way through high-school. But I want to attempt something anyway. You'll just have to keep in mind that I am a fifth grader (figuratively), so a whole bunch of the nuanced stuff will be lost. Chinese stuff in general is level 100 nuanced. And I can only be level 10 nuanced. But still, I will try my best! And I figured there's people out there just analyzing everything without any Chinese education whatsoever, with like, level 0 nuance. Also, I have a little bit of East-Asian religion knowledge from university days, which is also like at a level 10 nuance. But everyone should be able to analyze stuff and, this is my website. So here it is!

White Snake and Green Snake on the roof!

Plot Summary

OMG let me try to summarize this absolutely INSANE movie. Um, I'm gonna black it out! Highlight only if you don't care about being completely spoiled of the plot.

Handsome monk looks at hell, thinks everyone sucks, so he wants to be Buddha. Arrests spider. Sees random naked lady with baby and is total pervert on the inside. Meditates but is imagining naked ladies with tails instead. Buddha very disappointed, face peels off.

Meanwhile, two snake ladies, White and Green, frolic on roof. One falls down to have dance with South-Asian dancer, puts foot on her crotch and then disappears. White develops crush on Boring Scholar teaching poetry, and sets up illusionary houses and gardens to seduce him. Also makes umbrellas. Green gets jealous, obtains boyfriend of her own by trying to seduce Monk, of all people! Monk accepts challenge, thinks won't get seduced cause I'm totally cool, like Buddha. But is totally NOT cool and got seduced. Green celebrates victory by bragging but is told to go to sleep by sister. Green gets mad and seduces Boring Scholar. The sisters have an epic fall out.

Monk converts Boring Scholar into monk, the snake sisters are super mad. A buncha stuff happens. The snakes and monk fight. There's rain. And more rain. A bunch of houses fall down and a bunch of Buddha statues explode. Many people and many monks are dead. White dies Ursula-from-The-Little-Mermaid style by getting stabbed by a ship. But she somehow miraculously gave birth to a baby a moment prier to this. Monk holds baby, repents. Green realizes sister is dead, kills monk-converted Boring Scholar in rage. Then goes into river saying not coming back, because you humans stink. Flash back to Monk in forest thinking of naked lady with baby. End.

Green Snake, Qing She (Ching Sh-uh), is a novel written by Lillian Lee in the 1990s. About two two snake spirits who just want to have fun but are told to not have fun, by the monks in Buddhist society. It's an interpretation of an ancient myth called White Snake, from the perspective of a writer who grew up in Hong Kong during the 70s and 80s. And Green Snake the movie, is an interpretation of that novel, directed by Cantonese director Tsui Hark (pronounced more like "Troy", rather than how it's spelled), known for his 80s and 90s action movies at the time.

The original White Snake is a folktale as old as time, going alllll the way back to the 600s. 600s, you guys! Who knows what's true to the story and what's made up. It's all made up anyway. I'm saying that some parts are a reflection of what people went through in the Tang dynasty and some are Ming dynasty and some are modern. I think the Lillian Lee and Tsui Hark version is timeless. It's about the struggle of an oppressed group of people. All the snakes want, is to be human and have a family, but they're not able to have said family because they're snakes. Who said so? The monks said so. Or, the Buddha said so. According to the monks, anyway. The monks are the closest thing you get to Buddha so everyone had better do what they say. The monks made this really, really clear. They underlined it, by making HUGE statues that could fall on people's heads, and going around, collecting animals and putting them in jars. Or bowls. This movie might be set in Ming dynasty, which is around 1500s, when Buddhism was still pretty important. Or maybe it was Tang dynasty, when Buddhism was more important and part of the state. We are not sure. We just know that in this universe, anything that violates the Buddha is bad news. Sexy women are bad news. Snakes are bad news. Sexy women who are also snakes are really really bad news! One of the monks, named “Fa Hai”*, is in particular against them. Some might even say that he's obsessed. He goes out of his way to cock-block them by making their boyfriend become a monk. How dare he. The snake ladies are not gonna let this go down without a fight!

Xu Xian, the Scholar, is both frightened and enamored with the girls. They're Snakes!

The Snakes

In Chinese mythology, being an animal truly sucks. And this is because they can't go to Buddhist heaven. The two main animals are represented by women, it's a subtle way of saying women are under class. To be fair, a human's life isn't that great either. But if you're a human, you can at least escape by becoming a monk (or a nun but this movie doesn't have any nuns). You'd be all set, you're basically a Buddha. You just have to not have sex, and not have a whole bunch of other stuff, like hair, either. If you're an animal, you can still have sex but your life is kinda bad. Specifically, because you're hunted, all the time. Hunted by humans to eat or make a coat out of or make medicine out of your blood. Or hunted by monks, because you're trying to do the meditation thing, so you're not hunted by humans. Gosh! It really sucks! Oh, I should clarify. The animals can obtain a human form by meditating, but it's only a disguise. The monks do not recognize them as capable of becoming real humans. They'll catch them and put them in a bowl, reverting them back to their original animal forms, wiping out any human qualities they'd obtained by their hard work. The animals remind me of the AI in Blade Runner. All they want is to escape their crappy lives that they had no say in, but they're hunted for trying. It's a real catch-22!

I think the poor animals are impossibly optimistic and hopeful. They set themselves up in a mountain and do meditation and read Buddhist scriptures. In White Snake's case, she did that for 1000 years. 1000 years, you guys! Does anyone do anything for 1000 years anymore these days? She has the body of a beautiful human woman (Joey Wong, specifically, one of the most popular actresses of 90s Hong Kong cinema), and can act like a human, talk like a human, feel things like a human can. Except she can also turn into a snake at a drop of a hat, and has superpowers like making it rain and making houses with pretty gardens, and healing people's ailments. It sort of makes you question: why would anybody want to be a Buddha or a human, if you could be a magical snake? What makes monks better than magical snakes?

White Staring at Boring Scholar from afar

Green Snake

You'd think that if Green Snake only trained for 500 years, she'd have the body of an ugly woman, but that's not the case at all. She's Maggie Cheung at the height of her beauty. What does White Snake have that she doesn't? Errr, some of the more nuanced human emotions, a little bit better powers maybe, and the ability to cry and love. But who cares about those things, right? It's so much more fun being Green Snake! Well, the movie is called Green Snake, so we are a bit biased. She's a fish out of water. Or snake out of water. She's just starting to learn human customs and how to hide her tail, but she likes being a snake. Her powers aren't bad at all. She likes flying, catching rats, dancing with strangers and disappearing into a smoke cloud. And most of all, flirting with hot monks. She hasn't yet learned about any boundaries so she does whatever she likes. I think it's every girl's secret wish to be Green Snake. Or maybe just my secret wish. No, I think it's everyone's. Absolutely everyone, boy or girl or other.

Despite the snake girls' awesomely fun lives, they are being denied the right to exist, specifically, by a monk called Fa Hai. Darn it!

Men and their Ambition

Before I start talking about Fa Hai, the stick-in-the-mud. I have to talk about Xu Xian, the other stick-in-the-mud. Xu Xian (pronounced like “See-yu See-an”), is the love interest of White Snake. He is played by Taiwanese actor Wu Xing-Kuo, who did a fantastic job. His devotion to getting good grades rivals the monk's devotion to the Buddha. This is understandable, because academics are a man's weapon at that time. The higher the grades you obtain, the more likely you'll be appointed a position in government and make lots of money and have everyone think you're cool. Xu Xian tells his students they shouldn't even think about girls, 'cause that's bad, they'll never get into a university. Or whatever the Ming equivalent of a university is. He tears up one of his students love-letters to his girlfriend. What a jerk! Bai, White Snake, watches this from afar and ends up having a crush on him. I think she finds something thrilling in it. She calls Xu Xian, a “laoshi ren”, which the subtitles translate to “Mr Honest”. But I think the more accurate translation, is “Guy Likely To Not Cause Any Trouble Because Too Boring”, or “Boring Total Stick-in-the-Mud”. But I guess that's not very romantic. Bai gets him on a boat. Gives him an umbrella. This is her way of flirting. When I saw this movie in high-school, I wondered to myself: how could I get a guy on a boat and give him an umbrella so he'd fall in love with me? Because Xu Xian falls in love almost immediately and abandons all his scholarly ambitions. Is she secretly sticking it to patriarchy, by making this goody-two-shoes realize he's a human being? Maybe.

(Side Note: When I was growing up, like many kids in China, I saw a PG rated TV version of White Snake, where Xu Xian was played by a woman. This was the network's way of totally bypassing the sexuality aspect of the story. So, I'd pretty much grown up not ever thinking about it. And it was a TOTAL SHOCK, almost traumatizing event to see Xu Xian played by a man for the first time. Like. WTF. That's a dude. And they have sex?! WHAT??! An experience so absurd, yet, so understandable as a Chinese person. Since this was the 1000th time I'd seen Green Snake, I'd finally accepted it.)

Fa Hai, also known as "Fat-hoi" in Cantonese, is a rule-abiding, nuance-ignoring monk. I think "Fat-Hoi" sounds stupid, so I'll be using the Mandarin spelling (nothing wrong with Cantonese! I just find the English spelling distracting, it's English's fault!)

He is the strict Buddhist monk version of Xu Xian, the more interesting character, in my opinion. Traditionally, Fa Hai is an old guy with a pot belly and a long white beard and long white eye brows. Totally absurd choice for Maggie Cheung to be flirting with. But in this movie, he is played by 26 year old martial artist Vincent Zhao, who is so handsome it makes all the girls want to to be Green Snake so they can tease him and get him to be a bad Buddhist.

(OMG. This is getting SO long. Are you still with me?)

In an unrelated note, when I was in university, one of my East-Asian religion professors said that, in this time when there weren't advanced technology yet, Buddhism was the technology. It was believed that if you prayed in the right way to Buddha or you did the right Buddha things, they granted your wishes. Like making it rain so your crops could grow, or making it not rain so your houses don't fall down. And the monks are not only connected to Buddha, they are also a police force in that they hunt animals, who are believed to be responsible for both making your crops not grow and your houses fall down. If Buddhism is tech, I think that makes the monks the tech bros of ancient China. Fa Hai is a devoted, high-ranking tech bro. He goes around saying "Shan zai, shan zai" ("There's peace, there's peace."), hunting spiders, putting them in bowls. And he totally doesn't think about sex at all.

Except he totally does! He's repressed beyond belief! On one of his finding-animals-and-putting-them-in-bowl trips, he witnesses a naked woman giving birth to a baby in the forest, and can't get the image out of his mind. OMG. Shame on you Fa Hai. What are you gonna say to Buddha? Fa Hai is tormented, because on top of his new found perversion, he's also questioning his beliefs. The snakes were preventing the woman from being rained on. And in Fa Hai's brain, snakes are bad. If bad, then why good? And why is that new mom sexy? And why am I picturing naked bald women running around with snake tails? This weirdness is best observed by watching the movie. This is too much cognitive dissonance for our boy. And the Buddha statues are not happy at all. Their faces are pealing off.

Romance

At some point, Xu Xian gets caught between both ladies

OMG. This is my favourite thing to talk about. When I was in my early 20s, I used to be obsessed with Green Snake and the monk. OBSESSED. I didn't much care for Xu Xian and White Snake at all. 'Cause she likes him, he likes her, we know that already, even if Fa Hai is trying to tear them apart, who cares? I thought Green Snake and the monk were the true “it” couple. It's forbidden love! He's a monk, she's a snake. He denies his emotions. She's just learning hers. It's a match made in heaven! Or disaster made in heaven! It's the kind f thing people like. Clearly, she's awakening all of his secret desires! She's gonna get him to cheat on the Buddha! What could be more powerful to a woman, than making a man cheat on the Buddha? And, of course he secretly loves her because that's what every handsome stoic guy does in a movie. And of course she wants to be with him because why would any girl not want to be with Vincent Zhao's Fa Hai? Screw it with Buddhism, this is a romance novel, damn it!

But now, I'm not sure. Is it a romance? Or rather, is it a straight romance? I'm watching with less of a crazed, egocentric fan-girl perspective, hopefully. I realized there's a lot of same-sex behaviour between Green Snake and White Snake that went over my head. Green Snake has an obvious same-sex dance scene with the erotic dancer, I just didn't know what to make of it. Green Snake and White Snake snuggle on the roof, I assumed “oh they're snakes and that's what snakes do”, or “this is because Tsui Hark is a perv and he just wants to see lesbians on screen”. Which may be true, but it's also true to the text. Like, in every sex scene with White Snake, Green Snake is watching and imitating. Why is she doing that? And what's the motivation behind Green Snake working hard to become a human? It's not clear cut. Except she knows that White Snake wants to be a human. Her tryst with Fa Hai is more about winning than about love. The text is more about Green Snake's relationship with White Snake, despite the men's heavy presence.

Okay so HEAVY spoilers ahead!

Green Snake loves her sister! In the end, the person she loved most died, so she doesn't stick around. I think if she were to really like Fahai, she would have stayed. That was definitely not happening. I was super disappointed but that was the right decision. If they'd made this a romance between Green and Fahai, it would have been absolutely cheese-ball city. I would have LOVED it, but it would age so horribly! Ugh, can you imagine, Green Snake and Monk bickering over who changes the baby's diaper? And I'm guessing that most Chinese audience in the 90s would think it blasphemous on every level and never take it seriously. Maybe this monk and snake thing only appeals to a small group of weirdos like me... and truly, I don't even want it. I think I want it but I actually don't. Because that would mean Green Snake is no longer free! She'd have to take on the role of care-taking and I don't want that for her at all. She is cool aunt forever! Only plays with kid and talks to kid when kid needs a pep-talk!

In my head, she'd come back and visit the kid every once in a while. That's her sister's kid after-all. Fahai takes care of baby, with help of a few surviving monks. He's good at it. He's a monk. He's already used to responsibilities. And Green Snake and Fahai's relationship remains secret tryst. Scandalous. And then the kid grows up to have absolutely messed up view of sexuality 'cause he has sort of no mother-figure and everyone around him is in denial of this relationship. And then he meets another snake lady, or panther lady, or whatever, and the cycle repeats itself but in a slightly less bad way. That's it! That's my vision for Green Snake II. Please nobody make it.

Other Themes

And this movie embodies so much more! Like the struggle between one's nature and ambition. Does every guy have to constantly be striving to either be a scholar or a Buddha? AKA Ming dynasty tech bro? OMG. And WHY is the Buddha SUCH an imposing figure? Why are the stone statues built to be so gigantic? It's so eerie to see a bunch of guys all shave their heads and all wear the same outfit and, all be hitting a wooden fish with a stick. Those are just a few of the themes in that movie. It's such a rich movie! It made me think again and again, what does Buddhism represent? Who is the modern day equivalent to Buddhism? Who are the oppressed? And how come, such a heinous thing, such as the oppression of the animals, is so embedded in society, that no-one even questions it?

Despite such heavy themes. The movie is actually fun. There's minimal CGI and a lot of old school Wu Xia movie tricks. I'm not that familiar with Wu Xia. But it's got, you know, people flying around with invisible strings and, people dressed in a bunch of fabric blowing in the wind. There's also real bridges and real water and real people walking around and falling over and stuff. And a lot of water! And giant prosthetic snakes! Green Snake, I recommend it 10/10. It's really easy to find on the internet. Just make sure you look for the 1993 version by Tsui Hark (pronounced like Troy Hark).

Thank you for reading this all the way : ) I really really appreciate it! This update took forever. But I think it's important to write stuff that I care about, and not just put out things for the sake of putting things out. I'll be updating again sometime in the future!

Note: Edited on August 9th, 2025, then Edited Again August 23rd!