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yendiThe Bride With White Hair. 1993. Directed by Ronny Yu. Written by Kei To Lam. Distributed by Tai Seng.
This Valentine's Day, let's celebrate one of the great cinematic love stories: The Bride With White Hair.
What does this movie have going for it? Everything.
It's got doomed romance, martial arts, training sequences that were lifted whole hog into Kill Bill, humor, arterial blood spurts, the real Wu-Tang Clan, politics, massacres, evil Siamese twins, bisections, a woman who can whip rocks in half, and some damned fine sex.
It's also got subtitles and a non-linear plot, so I'd suggest not checking your brain at the door.
We start with an older warrior on a mountain, waiting and watching for a flower capable of granting immortality to grow. When a group of emissaries for the dying emperor come, looking for the flower, he dismisses them in disgust, and they attack him. He wipes them out, and as the last spurts gallons of blood onto the snow, he asks what could be more important than the emperor. The answer, naturally, is Love, True Love. And we now get a flashback that will tell the rest of the story.
The movie jumps back and forth time-wise, telling the story of the romance between Lien, top assassin for an evil cult, and Cho, head killer for the Wu-Tang Clan*. The cult is led by Ji, actually a pair of Siamese twins**, one male and one female, joined at the back. They're up there with Top Dollar and his sister in The Crow for "creepiest on-screen siblings."
The cult has been plotting against the Wu-Tang Clan for years, ever since Zi was/were*** kicked out of the clan for being evil. They found Lien being raised by wolves, and recognized her as a perfect killing machine. They hadn't counted on Lien meeting Cho and falling for him, however. They first meet as children, but they truly fall in love as adults, when they meet during a peasant revolt.
After some brief flirtations (Cho tries to seduce Lien, and Lien attempts to hit him with her whip which is capable of splitting stone). Eventually, they make love under a waterfall****, and make the usual promises lovers make. In this case, Cho promises that if Lien ever gets old and her hair turns white, he'll get a special flower that will make her immortal. He also vows to never, ever let her down or betray her trust.
They agree to run away form the cult and the Wu-Tang together, and when Lien tells Ji, she offers the twins anything they want if they let her out of the cult. Alas, the male half of Ji is also in love with the wolf girl, and isn't ready to let her go. He wants to take her virginity, and starts making love to her. In the middle of the act (which looks just as ludicrous as you'd imagine, given the two halves of Ji), the female half recognizes, at least, that Lien is more experienced than they expected.
In disgust, both halves of Ji make Lien leave the clan by taking the walk of shame. Since there's no Frat Row in this part of China, the walk instead consists of Lien having to walk down a long stairway and being beaten by hundreds of cultists, while not being allowed to use her martial arts skills to defend herself. To everyone's surprise, she survives.
Cho, meanwhile, has left his clan, but his clanmates convince him to at least visit his old master. When he does so, he discovers that his master has been decapitated (only a head is left behind), and when he discovers from one of his dying clanmates that the cult was responsible (and that Lien was involved, a frame-up job on the part of the cult), he gets enraged.
Lien, showing the worst timing ever, makes it to the clan to meet her lover, and is shocked by the reaction of the clan. But when Cho confronts her, she acts with disdain, and he assumes the worst about her. The clan attacks her, and she dismembers a bunch of them in graphic ways. She's in the process of choking Cho's old girlfriend (named Ho, god help her), when Cho intervenes, causing her to get stabbed in the shoulder.
As the fact that her lover has violated his vow to always trust her sinks in, she goes mad, and we see her hair transform into long, white strands. She throws her sword, impaling Ho, and then attacks the rest of the clan with her hair (which turned prehensile when it turned white), eliminating everyone but Cho. She tells Cho that his lover is dead and flies off.
Cho is now confronted by what he assumes is the ghost of his master, who tells him how disappointed he is. Cho, in disgrace, stabs himself in the gut with his sword, but the "master" reveals himself to be Ji in disguise (with the female half hidden behind a pole). Both halves of Ji taunt and telekinetically attack the wounded hero, eventually holding up a machete and pulling a spread-eagled Cho towards it in an act that Auric Goldfinger would adore. Just as Cho is about to be redesigned*****, out of nowhere, the head of the giant Buddha statue in the clan's temple topples onto Ji. Deus ex machina indeed!
It turns out that the Bride has been hanging around, and she dropped the Buddha head. She lowers herself to the ground, but before she can say anything to her ex-lover, she's nailed by the same Buddha head! Ji is/are still alive, and boy are both halves mad! Ji and Lien fight (with both getting hurt a few times), but eventually, Lien is knocked aside, and it looks like Cho is about to meet his maker.
At the last second, before the male half of Ji can finish Cho, the Bride grabs them with her hair. The quick thinking twins, however, spin around, pulling in the Bride, and they bounce around the room like a pinball, battering the Bride nearly to death.
With the Bride nearly dead, the female half of Ji goads her brother to finish the task, but he hesitates, and Cho leaps back into the fray, severing the twins! As they spurt gallons of blood, they fall to the floor and die. The male half of Ji, as he rolls -- for the first time in his life -- onto his back, utters one of my favorite dying phrases: "Never knew sleeping like this would be so comfortable." The Bride looks at Cho, but her sense of betrayal overwhelms all else, and she flies away, ending the movie. We never do learn if Cho gets the flower, or gives it to her.
The Bride With White Hair is either more or less than a horror movie. It certainly transcends genres. But the massive amounts of gore, combined with the supernatural elements, make me feel more than comfortable reviewing it as a part of this series.
Director Ronny Yu does a marvelous job here, as he has done in all of his Hong Kong films (but not, alas, tripe like Formula 51 and Freddy vs Jason). We get classic wire-fu martial arts interspersed with a beautiful love story, and the pacing never falters. His decision to go with the downbeat ending (while not choosing to kill the lovers, either) leads to a moving finale, one that always manages touch me.
The late (and sorely missed) Leslie Cheung, as Cho, plays the anguished hero to the hilt. Although Farewell My Concubine will always be his best-known film, this, to me, was his finest performance. Brigitte Lin holds her own opposite Cheung, shifting her character from the vicious wolf girl to the lovestruck Lien to the heartbroken Bride. The two have near-perfect chemistry together, and the scenes they share are dazzling.
This Valentine's Day, you could waste your time watching something treacly with Meg Ryan or Jennifer Aniston in it, or you could watch a film filled with emotional depth, breathtaking baggage, and virtuoso performances. The Bride With White Hair is one of the great pieces of Hong Kong cinema, and I'll take this over whatever Hollywood chooses to put out today in a heartbeat.
*Yes, feel free to make whatever tired old RZA or Ol' Dirty Bastard joke you'd like here. I prefer to avoid puns when they're that obvious, but if I didn't have this footnote here, someone would assume I was losing my touch for puns. Personally, I just prefer aiming higher.
**Yes, I know that we're supposed to call them conjoined twins, but there's actually a chance they're Siamese. Plus, they use the term in the subtitles.
***Grammar is annoying where you're dealing with conjoined siblings who share one name.
****Have a glass of cold water on hand while watching this scene. It's that damned good.
*****What? You haven't seen Ice Pirates?
This Valentine's Day, let's celebrate one of the great cinematic love stories: The Bride With White Hair.
What does this movie have going for it? Everything.
It's got doomed romance, martial arts, training sequences that were lifted whole hog into Kill Bill, humor, arterial blood spurts, the real Wu-Tang Clan, politics, massacres, evil Siamese twins, bisections, a woman who can whip rocks in half, and some damned fine sex.
It's also got subtitles and a non-linear plot, so I'd suggest not checking your brain at the door.
We start with an older warrior on a mountain, waiting and watching for a flower capable of granting immortality to grow. When a group of emissaries for the dying emperor come, looking for the flower, he dismisses them in disgust, and they attack him. He wipes them out, and as the last spurts gallons of blood onto the snow, he asks what could be more important than the emperor. The answer, naturally, is Love, True Love. And we now get a flashback that will tell the rest of the story.
The movie jumps back and forth time-wise, telling the story of the romance between Lien, top assassin for an evil cult, and Cho, head killer for the Wu-Tang Clan*. The cult is led by Ji, actually a pair of Siamese twins**, one male and one female, joined at the back. They're up there with Top Dollar and his sister in The Crow for "creepiest on-screen siblings."
The cult has been plotting against the Wu-Tang Clan for years, ever since Zi was/were*** kicked out of the clan for being evil. They found Lien being raised by wolves, and recognized her as a perfect killing machine. They hadn't counted on Lien meeting Cho and falling for him, however. They first meet as children, but they truly fall in love as adults, when they meet during a peasant revolt.
After some brief flirtations (Cho tries to seduce Lien, and Lien attempts to hit him with her whip which is capable of splitting stone). Eventually, they make love under a waterfall****, and make the usual promises lovers make. In this case, Cho promises that if Lien ever gets old and her hair turns white, he'll get a special flower that will make her immortal. He also vows to never, ever let her down or betray her trust.
They agree to run away form the cult and the Wu-Tang together, and when Lien tells Ji, she offers the twins anything they want if they let her out of the cult. Alas, the male half of Ji is also in love with the wolf girl, and isn't ready to let her go. He wants to take her virginity, and starts making love to her. In the middle of the act (which looks just as ludicrous as you'd imagine, given the two halves of Ji), the female half recognizes, at least, that Lien is more experienced than they expected.
In disgust, both halves of Ji make Lien leave the clan by taking the walk of shame. Since there's no Frat Row in this part of China, the walk instead consists of Lien having to walk down a long stairway and being beaten by hundreds of cultists, while not being allowed to use her martial arts skills to defend herself. To everyone's surprise, she survives.
Cho, meanwhile, has left his clan, but his clanmates convince him to at least visit his old master. When he does so, he discovers that his master has been decapitated (only a head is left behind), and when he discovers from one of his dying clanmates that the cult was responsible (and that Lien was involved, a frame-up job on the part of the cult), he gets enraged.
Lien, showing the worst timing ever, makes it to the clan to meet her lover, and is shocked by the reaction of the clan. But when Cho confronts her, she acts with disdain, and he assumes the worst about her. The clan attacks her, and she dismembers a bunch of them in graphic ways. She's in the process of choking Cho's old girlfriend (named Ho, god help her), when Cho intervenes, causing her to get stabbed in the shoulder.
As the fact that her lover has violated his vow to always trust her sinks in, she goes mad, and we see her hair transform into long, white strands. She throws her sword, impaling Ho, and then attacks the rest of the clan with her hair (which turned prehensile when it turned white), eliminating everyone but Cho. She tells Cho that his lover is dead and flies off.
Cho is now confronted by what he assumes is the ghost of his master, who tells him how disappointed he is. Cho, in disgrace, stabs himself in the gut with his sword, but the "master" reveals himself to be Ji in disguise (with the female half hidden behind a pole). Both halves of Ji taunt and telekinetically attack the wounded hero, eventually holding up a machete and pulling a spread-eagled Cho towards it in an act that Auric Goldfinger would adore. Just as Cho is about to be redesigned*****, out of nowhere, the head of the giant Buddha statue in the clan's temple topples onto Ji. Deus ex machina indeed!
It turns out that the Bride has been hanging around, and she dropped the Buddha head. She lowers herself to the ground, but before she can say anything to her ex-lover, she's nailed by the same Buddha head! Ji is/are still alive, and boy are both halves mad! Ji and Lien fight (with both getting hurt a few times), but eventually, Lien is knocked aside, and it looks like Cho is about to meet his maker.
At the last second, before the male half of Ji can finish Cho, the Bride grabs them with her hair. The quick thinking twins, however, spin around, pulling in the Bride, and they bounce around the room like a pinball, battering the Bride nearly to death.
With the Bride nearly dead, the female half of Ji goads her brother to finish the task, but he hesitates, and Cho leaps back into the fray, severing the twins! As they spurt gallons of blood, they fall to the floor and die. The male half of Ji, as he rolls -- for the first time in his life -- onto his back, utters one of my favorite dying phrases: "Never knew sleeping like this would be so comfortable." The Bride looks at Cho, but her sense of betrayal overwhelms all else, and she flies away, ending the movie. We never do learn if Cho gets the flower, or gives it to her.
The Bride With White Hair is either more or less than a horror movie. It certainly transcends genres. But the massive amounts of gore, combined with the supernatural elements, make me feel more than comfortable reviewing it as a part of this series.
Director Ronny Yu does a marvelous job here, as he has done in all of his Hong Kong films (but not, alas, tripe like Formula 51 and Freddy vs Jason). We get classic wire-fu martial arts interspersed with a beautiful love story, and the pacing never falters. His decision to go with the downbeat ending (while not choosing to kill the lovers, either) leads to a moving finale, one that always manages touch me.
The late (and sorely missed) Leslie Cheung, as Cho, plays the anguished hero to the hilt. Although Farewell My Concubine will always be his best-known film, this, to me, was his finest performance. Brigitte Lin holds her own opposite Cheung, shifting her character from the vicious wolf girl to the lovestruck Lien to the heartbroken Bride. The two have near-perfect chemistry together, and the scenes they share are dazzling.
This Valentine's Day, you could waste your time watching something treacly with Meg Ryan or Jennifer Aniston in it, or you could watch a film filled with emotional depth, breathtaking baggage, and virtuoso performances. The Bride With White Hair is one of the great pieces of Hong Kong cinema, and I'll take this over whatever Hollywood chooses to put out today in a heartbeat.
*Yes, feel free to make whatever tired old RZA or Ol' Dirty Bastard joke you'd like here. I prefer to avoid puns when they're that obvious, but if I didn't have this footnote here, someone would assume I was losing my touch for puns. Personally, I just prefer aiming higher.
**Yes, I know that we're supposed to call them conjoined twins, but there's actually a chance they're Siamese. Plus, they use the term in the subtitles.
***Grammar is annoying where you're dealing with conjoined siblings who share one name.
****Have a glass of cold water on hand while watching this scene. It's that damned good.
*****What? You haven't seen Ice Pirates?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 06:32 pm (UTC)But the wonderful thing about my brain is that I'll likely forget that I've seen it and happily rewatch it again anyway :)
I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this, and heh - Jet Li :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 07:05 pm (UTC)And thanks for the shout out to The Crow. I heart Michael Wincott, and Top Dollar is one of my favorite performances of his. Will this be making it into your Valentine's horror series? It's definitely got a lot of romance going on; the flashback scenes with Brandon Lee and his poor fiancee are truly lovely.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 07:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 08:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 09:31 pm (UTC)Did you notice that they stole the leaving the gang scene for Xena and Dangerous Minds, the television show?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 09:33 pm (UTC)Leslie Cheung turns up for the last three minutes.
Still cool, and it's the first time that the "This is a work of fiction" credit roll made me laugh aloud.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 09:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 09:39 pm (UTC)oh my...
wow - my brain was totally not reading right this morning.
Today's not been a good day *laugh*...that's ok. And I was actually confused as to why
Thank you for pointing out my error.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 09:59 pm (UTC)"I'll believe that a little Chinese man can turn into a dragon, but you can't punch someone's head off. That's impossible."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 11:38 pm (UTC)ALso one of the few action films where the sequel, though not its equal, is not a let-down.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 05:13 am (UTC)