“White Snake Tale” is one of the four major folk legends in China,
which has been orally recited in the folklore since the Tang Dynasty
and the Five Dynasties, and the story is basically finalized in the
twenty-eighth volume of the novel ‘A Cautionary Tale’ compiled by
Feng Menglong in the Ming Dynasty, which is the story of White
Snake Forever Suppressing the Thunder Peak Pagoda. Afterwards, it
has been passed down through many versions and genres, and has
become the object of interpretation and explanation by various art
forms. As the French philosopher Foucault said, “No, if one means
by that writing a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if
one means writing the history of the present.”重要的不是神话所叙述的年代，而是叙述
神话的年代。In the course of China's movie development, the story of
“The Legend of the White Snake” has been brought to the screen
many times, and the movie works adapted in different periods have
different cultural connotations under the influence of the
background of the times and the creator's main cognition.
In the 1980s, Hong Kong writer Li Bihua wrote the novel “Green
Snake” based on “The Legend of the White Snake,” which changed
the previous narrative style of focusing on the White Snake, and
made the Green Snake, which was on the periphery of the
traditional story, the center of the narrative. 1993, Hong Kong
director Tsui Hark further adapted the story of “Green Snake,”
making a film of the same name. Both the novel and the movie have
deconstructed and reconstructed the folkloric classic to a
considerable extent. This paper will apply Levi-Strauss's
mythological theory to explore the consistent humanistic theme of
the story from the conflicting binaries, such as good versus evil,
feelings versus desires, morality (rationality) versus bestiality
(sensibility), and freedom versus constraints, in the erotically
charged graphic narrative, and to explore the traditional challenges
posed by the protagonist, the Green Snake, who is the central figure
in the story. It also explores the social and contemporary factors
behind Green Snake's challenge to traditional social authority and
the empowerment of women as the protagonist.
History
Chinese martial arts movies originated in the 1920s, and Hong Kong
martial arts movies were produced during the Anti-Japanese War.
The development of Hong Kong martial arts movies is closely
related to Hong Kong's unique geopolitical attributes and cultural
environment. The confrontation between the two camps of
capitalism and socialism during the “Cold War” made Hong Kong an
“isolated island” outside of mainland China and the West. On the
one hand, the British colonization of Hong Kong branded Hong Kong
culture with Western and colonial cultures; on the other hand, the
whole Hong Kong culture was birthed in the soil of traditional
Chinese culture, and the structure of Hong Kong's residents has
always been predominantly Chinese, with a strong cultural heritage
characterized by Chinese cultural traditions. Hong Kong's “marginal”
position in the political landscape, the ambiguity of its cultural
identity, and the cultural imagination of the “Jianghu” have become
a fertile ground for the development of martial arts films.
In the martial arts films directed by Tsui Hark, the characteristics of
Hong Kong's cultural pluralism and mixture are reflected. In addition
to showing the traditional ideas of “chivalry” and “Taoism”, he also
focuses on the subject of human beings, embodying the observation
and care for human nature, which is also called the “New Wuxia”. It
is also known as the “New Wuxia” movie. The opera art, classical
painting-like composition and use of colors, as well as the poetic
sets and characters in “Green Snake” undoubtedly have traditional
cultural characteristics, creating a strong atmosphere of oriental
romanticism. However, although it is set in the Song Dynasty, the
theme of human nature explored in “Green Snake” is very modern,
implying the anxiety of people in modern society. The two
propositions of “what is a human being” and “what is love” go hand
in hand, and the exploration of human nature cannot get around the
theme of “lust” or the more general “desire”. The theme of “lust” or
more generally “desire” cannot be explored in the context of human
nature, and the experience of human nature is the core value of
Tsui Hark's “New Wuxia” movies.
Time factor: the return of “1997” and the search for the main
character
In the 1980s, when the original book of Green Snake was born, and
the 1990s, when the movie was released, Hong Kong's politics,
economy and culture entered a period of transition, which was also
an important period of transition in the history of Hong Kong
movies. At the same time, from the signing of the Sino-British Joint
Declaration in 1984 to the official handover of Hong Kong in 1997,
“1997”, as a special historical discourse, affected the social
psychology of Hong Kong, bringing about reflections on colonization
and reunification, cultural identity and the search for identity.
In the novel Green Snake, Li Bihua borrows Xiaoqing's words to say,
“It (The White Lady Eternally Suppressing Leifeng Pagoda) conceals
the absurd truth. Acid wind, jealousy and rain entangled in four
corners, all of which are not explained in the book. I'm not
satisfied ...... who can't write other people's stories well, this is
China, China passed down all the records, are not the truth of the
parties.” Xiaoqing words contain the very power to write history.
Outside of her work, Li Bihua also mentions, “Our generation's
knowledge of Hong Kong's history is close to zero ...... When the
colony came to an end, we suddenly realized the blankness of our
own heads and rushed to trace our own identity.” By making Green
Snake, who has long been neglected and suppressed on the fringes
of mainstream discourse, the protagonist of the narrative, Li Bihua
has perhaps mapped Hong Kong's colonial history to its
marginalized situation between the East and the West.
In Tsui Hark's films, the question of “what is a human being” and
“what is love” is also a search for Hong Kong's own identity. As
Hong Kong's century-long colonial rule is coming to an end,
globalization, which has been in full swing and will be strongly
promoted by the end of the Cold War, has made the meaning of the
nation-state, the integration of the imagination and the boundaries
of the nation-state particularly ambiguous and fragile, which is
presented in the film as a sense of identity crisis with a great sense
of urgency. The end of the film “Green Snake” does not answer
Xiaoqing's query, and it also metaphorically shows the difficulty of
Hong Kong society in finding its own identity positioning under the
state of long-term colonization and marginalization, and Xiaoqing's
departure is precisely a self-exile after a fruitless pursuit.
When the sovereignty of Hong Kong was finally returned,
globalization as a more powerful force swept Mainland China and
Hong Kong into the capitalist cultural and industrial system, co-
productions between Hong Kong and Mainland China, the
prevalence of the Hollywood model, and Hong Kong directors'
“going north” blurred the differences in the forms of expression
between the two places' cinematic works, and the space for
personal narratives and imaginations was gradually reduced under
the wave of commercialization. Under the wave of
commercialization, the space for personal narration and imagination
has gradually shrunk. It is only in the “Occupy China” incident and
the “controversy over legislative amendments” in recent years that
we can realize that the identity and recognition crisis caused by the
colonial history still exists, and that the metaphor of history has
finally surfaced in reality.
中国武侠电影起源于 20 世纪 20 年代，香港的武侠电影产生于抗日战争时期.
香港武侠电影的发展与香港独特的地缘政治属性与文化环境密切相关。“冷战”期间资本主义与社会主义两大阵营的对峙，使得香
港成为中国大陆与西方社会之外的“孤岛”。一方面，英国在香港的殖民给香港文化打上了西方文化与殖民文化的烙印；另一方面，
整个香港文化又是在中国民族传统文化的土壤中萌生的，香港的居民结构也始终以华人为主，其文化底蕴带有浓郁的中国文化传统
特征。香港在政治格局中的“边缘”地位、文化身份的模糊与“江湖”的文化想象相契合，成为武侠片发展的丰沃土壤。
《》
“”、“道”思想外，他还将观照的主体集中于人，体现出对人性的观照与关怀，又被称为“新武侠”电影。《青蛇》中的戏曲艺术、古
典画般的构图与色彩运用，以及富有诗意的布景与人物造型无疑具有传统文化特色，营造了浓郁的东方浪漫主义氛围。但是，虽然
《》 “何为人 ”与“何为情”这两
个命题相伴相生，对于人性的探讨绕不开“情欲”或更为普遍的“欲望”主题，而人性的体验正是徐克“新武侠”电影一以贯之的核
心价值。
《》 80 年代与电影上映的 90 年代，香港的政治、经济、文化都进入了转型期，也是香港电影史上的一个重要转型期。同时，
从 1984 《》 1997 年香港正式回归，“一九九七”作为特殊的历史话语影响着香港的社会心理，带来了殖民与回归、文化
认同与身份追寻的反思。
《》“《》……谁都写不好别人的故事，这便是中国，中国流传下来的一切记载，都不是当事人的真相。”小青话中蕴含着正是书
写历史的权力。在作品之外，李碧华也提到：“我们这一辈对香港历史的认识近乎零……当殖民地走向终结时，我们忽然觉到自
己脑袋的空白，急于追认自己的身份。”李碧华将在主流话语边缘、长期被疏忽和被压抑的青蛇作为叙事主人公，或许就与香港由
于殖民历史所造就的处于东西方边缘状况的境遇有着映射关系。
在徐克的电影中，对于“何为人”、“何为情”的追问也正是对香港自身身份的追寻。在香港历经百年的殖民统治即将落幕之际，已全力启动，并将为冷战终结所
《》
而当香港主权最终回归，全球化作为一种更为强大的力量将中国内地与香港席卷入资本主义文化工业体系，香港与内地合拍电影、
好莱坞模式的盛行、香港导演“北上”模糊了两地电影作品的表现形式差异，商业化浪潮下有关个人叙述与想象的空间逐渐缩小。
只有在近些年的“占中”事件、“修例风波”中，我们才能意识到殖民历史导致的身份危机与认同危机依旧存在，历史的隐喻最终于
现实浮现。
2“文本互涉” (intertextuality)，主要是指“不同 文本之间结构、故事等相互模仿(包括具有反讽意味的 滑稽模仿
或正面的艺术模仿)、主题的相互关联或暗合 等情况。当然也包括一个文本对另一个文本的直接引 用。”[9]文本作为文化的存
在物，存在着文化传承和 文学发展的内部继承性，有对前代文学的模仿，有对 文学母题的改造，更有直接的毫无掩饰的指涉。文
本 互涉理论的提出启发了重写方式的创新，从理论上说， 文学本身就存在着互涉的关系，所有作品都存在着对 以往作品的模仿和
对传统文化的承袭。任何创作首先 是创作主体的虚构，对一个故事的叙述因此可以有多 种方式。李碧华讨巧地选择了大众耳熟能
《》 《》对传统文本的改写大致有摹仿性改写和逆反性改 写两种方式，《青蛇》是结构性摹仿和逆反性改写的 结合，保留了大体的故事情节和发展脉络，只对人
蛇视
青
于
由
上
际
实
但
，
袭
承
的
本
文
原
对
出
现内核，原本铺设的传统价值观都悄然地发生了质的变化。 《青蛇》中，李碧华刻意地塑造着自由独立的女性理 想人格。这种重塑，
神
精
其
及
象
形
物
人
典
正
于
源
本
原
，
重
借
被
的
角
首先是建立在颠覆男性视角里的 理想女性人格基础上的。新旧两个文本的差别，实际 上也男性文本与女性文本的差别。李碧华对
人性的脆 弱早已洞若观火，所以将这个伴随并最终满足数百年 来中国人的欣赏趣味的社会文学还原为一个充满勾心 斗角、情欲放
纵的现代爱情游戏。她一眼洞穿了几千 年来男欢女爱的虚伪面目，颠覆了传统故事中夫妻恩 爱的假象，颠覆了这个被神化的、一
味牺牲与付出的 传统贤妻的形象，塑造了两个充满女性自觉、自醒意 识的新女性形象——自立、能干、精明甚至自私的现 代
都市女人形象。也因此，一个纯洁无邪的古典爱情 神话在另一个相关文本中被演变成了一则布满尴尬与 辛酸的世俗故事。
3 青蛇对白蛇的同性暧昧，青蛇对许仙的勾引与刺杀，法海对许仙的占有欲，同性之恋、多角之恋、佛妖之恋都是对传统的白蛇许
《》“人性”复杂的青蛇这里是随性而自由的。
根据性别的社会建构论来看，“弗洛伊德的儿童性欲理论认为虽然男女两性具有极为不同的心理本质、性本质，但是所谓男性气质、
女性气质、异性恋、同性恋都不是天生的，而是后天获得的，是由特殊的文化环境造成的” [16]。青蛇和白蛇的社会性别虽为
女性，但合理地说作为本体“蛇”而言她们是“雌性”。因此青蛇受人类社会影响的性别建构就表现出了不稳定性、非固定性，当青
蛇在人类社会中体会到女性性别、身份角色的卑微和压抑时，她对于白蛇的同性恋倾向也更加强烈。性别社会建构理论认为，“人
生而为男女都没有天生的性别认同，而是在成长过程中获得的” [16]。男人和女人的身份认定是潜移默化的，不止受限于生理
性别。青蛇学习做“女人”是主动参与社会性别的建构，但随着其在人世的“成长”愈发加强的同性恋倾向也是对于男性霸权和异性
恋霸权的反叛和解构，也是其作为“蛇”的自然情感。古代社会对男性的包容更体现在对男同行为的包容上，帝王和达官贵人好男
风正常，而女性不然。可见，李碧华的书写不止是对人物性别的模糊，也是对“人性”模糊。情感的复杂打破了白蛇传说中单一的
爱情叙事模式，人性的复杂使男女权力得以颠覆和解构。"On ne naît pas femme, on le devient."
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." (De Beauvoir)
这句话，强调了性别的社会构建性，认为女性的身份和性别角色是在社会化过程中被赋予和形成的，而不是基于生物性别的天然属
性。
