Green Snake

Green Snake (青蛇, literal Chinese title: The Teal/Green Snake) is a 1993 Hong Kong fantasy film made by Tsui Hark. It is the adaptation of a novel of the same title by Lilian Lee. The novel itself is a variation of a Chinese folk tale Madame White Snake, where Lillian Lee tells the story from the perspective of Xiaoqing, the Green Snake, who normally plays a supporting role behind the main character Bai Suzhen, the White Snake. As the title suggests, the movie also features Xiaoqing as the main character. Indian actresses, Nagma & Sridevi also feature in important pivotal roles from their side. Plot The movie draws heavily upon the Buddhist belief of Saṃsāra and the cycle of reincarnation. A Buddhist monk named Fat-hoi (Vincent Zhao) has trained for 20 years to banish demons from the Human World. Fat-hoi does not believe in non-human beings seeking to improve themselves spiritually. He encounters a spider demon who has taken the form of a Buddhist priest. He captures the spider demon who pleads with him as it has been spiritually refining itself for 200 years to be able to reincarnate. Fat-hoi ignores his pleas and traps him in a magical cauldron and leaves the demon under a gazebo. When the Buddhist beads of the demon continues to shine Fat-hoi realizes he may have made a mistake in interfering with the Spider's path to enlightenment. A storm takes place while Fat-hoi goes into the forest and he attacks two Snake spirits. But after he noticed that they were only preventing rain from hitting a woman giving birth, he releases them. He is haunted by the images of the female body of the mother who gave birth. The two snakes, White Snake (Joey Wong) and Green Snake (Maggie Cheung), are on the rooftop of a feast. Green Snake participates while White Snake sees a local scholar Hsui Xien (Wu Hsing-Kuo) in a nearby building. The two have been training for many centuries to take human form. White Snake is the more experienced one and falls in love with Hsui Xien. She plans to have a family with him and continue with her attempt to reincarnate as a human; Green Snake is the younger and more impulsive of the two sisters but she is more prone to indulge in sensuality. They both move into their magically created house and start a successful medical practice in the town. Other than Hsui Xien's visit, the two gets another visit unexpectedly from a buffoonish Taoist whom Green Snake leaves the household to take care of.