White Dragon

When I saw Cecilia Cheung for the first time in The Legend of Zu (2001), I was immediately struck (if not smitten) by her beauty, and I hurriedly started looking for her in other movies. After a bunch of modern-day dramas (slightly boring, truth be told), she's finally back in a fantasy martial arts epic, looking better than ever.

I was immensely thrilled to find White Dragon, and I was elated as I saw the first twenty minutes of it. There is so much cool action, so many great laughs; so much delightful entertainment.

The rest of the movie is not bad, but it slows down a great deal to focus on building up the love story. It has many of the same plot elements that other Asian movies of this type has; someone is blind (yet a superb kung fu master), the girl is betrothed to another but can't help falling in love with the hero (yes, just like in House of Flying Daggers), and the love story completely takes over the movie after about a half-hour opening of great action and comedy (the great 2002 comedy Chinese Odyssey had the exact same structure). This is a little disappointing; one would really have liked the action and comedy to be sustained throughout the movie.

However, it's still an uproariously entertaining, beautiful and funny movie, and the actors all do an amazing job.

8 out of 10.

Honestly the general story or theme of the movie is pretty good. I had feeling for the characters, there persona, especially Chickin Feathers. But there some things that bothered me in it also. First of all, what is the thing about Chinese incorporating flying in there martial arts. The Chinese kung fu itself is beautiful and grace full, they could do awesome martial arts movie whiteout adding stuff like that. I have a lot of trouble getting in the fights with this style. If i watch a sci-fy movie, i know there is gonna be stuff not possible, but a martial arts movie, i need it to seem at least with possible movement. I don't mind 1 or 2 wired shot, like Romeo Must Die or Jet Li's Fearless, but well... not a whole fight. Second the whole "computer stuff" ... what was that? Stupid. And finally, for a movie with martial arts in the synopsis, there is not much of it... There like 3 short fights in the whole movie... It felt way more like a drama than a martial arts movie. I don't say drama is not good, its just that the advertising seem wrong for me. But like i said, the story part, the "drama part" if you will was pretty good. It only needed a little more polishing on the fights, maybe 2 or 3 mores too, and the "comedy" aspect didn't felt at the right place at all.

If you have ever watched a 90s Hong Kong action/comedy...say city hunter with jackie chan (ie: Jackie chan as Chun Li from street fighter) then you know just how unserious these movies can be. This is an example of it (this genre happens to be one of my favorites). This movie has managed to incorporate jokes from the new millenia into the a feudal china setting. If you aren't entertained by a teenage girl smashing a sitar on a pillar in rock star form and then crowd surfing, then this movie might not be for you. If you are however just looking to be entertained and don't really care if the movie is real quality or not then this will do. The story isn't really innovative, the jokes are pretty cheesy, the lines are pretty cheesy too, but you know if people didn't make these types of movies then there wouldn't be a cliché or a norm. So take it for what it is, a silly movie designed to entertain you with out a lot of drama or required brain power. It's a movie, it's job was to entertain, it did for the most part. I could probably do without the last couple of minutes of the movie.

6/10, it is average for the most part, Cecilia Chung looks pretty cute in this movie. The blind guy...just looks goofy or like hes having seizures. You might say I have no taste, I say don't be so picky, you might starve to death.

What do you get if you take the uncomfortable teenage sense of humour of High School Musical and replace the music numbers with sword fights and martial arts choreography? Something very closely resembling The White Dragon, as it turns out.

And unfortunately this is not really a good thing. The very Western sense of humour clashes horribly with the Oriental aesthetic and ideals, making the whole experience more baffling and uncomfortable than funny or thought-provoking. More often than it feels more like a parody than an actual comedy, which I sense wasn't the intended goal of the film makers.

Aside from that, it's not even that good of a wuxia film. And not just because the immature jokes water the subject matter down, but because it lacks the grandeur and philosophy of a proper wuxia film. Again, more like a parody than a proper representation of its intended genre.

That's not to say that the actors are untalented or that the fight scenes are not fun to watch, but while it may look fine, it lacks soul and passion. Though admittedly this applies to most comedies nowadays, because it's so easy to gain cheap laughs by pandering to the lowest common denominator. In that regard this movie is no different from Hollywood's usual fare.

If you can stomach most comedies and would like to see one with a wuxia setting, then The White Dragon is worth checking out. But if you're looking for a traditional wuxia film or require some semblance of thought from your movies, then look elsewhere.

If you liked 'Cat and Mouse', this is a movie you're going to like. It is a great romantic comedy, where you inevitably fall in love with the characters. I enjoyed how they stepped it up a little with a touch of a different culture in it, but glad they didn't over do it. Cecilia Cheung is a funny woman with a lot of talent. I will watch movies that she's in, just because she's in them. She just seems so comfortable in the roles she plays, and humor seems to come easy to her. Her co-partner, who plays Chicken feathers, really brought his character out. I would like to watch more of his movies, because he played his role very well in this movie. He made quirky movements like a chicken, and a funky chicken at that, and was still quite charming and lovable. I don't know if people watch this because they are looking for action, but it is more of a romantic comedy with the bonus of action. The fighting style reminded me of the video game 'Mortal Combat', which I thought was pretty cool and can appreciate. I advise anyone watching this as a foreign film, to watch it with subtitles. Nothing beats hearing the tone of the real voices, and reading the subtitles is not difficult, but sometimes listening to voice-overs are. May I repeat...subtitles, subtitles, subtitles. I fear that some people did choose to have it sounded in English, which might have taken away from an otherwise good experience. This movie, and 'Cat and Mouse', are on my favorites list for romantic comedies.