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The Bride With White Hair

The Bride With White Hair

List Price: $19.95
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: FOR THOSE WHO APPRECIATE LOVE STORIES!
Review: Ronny Yu chose the perfect characters to play the lovers! Brigitte Lin looks absolutely beautiful in every angle in every scene. This movie will not be good for those who are expecting to see a great deal of martial arts. From the moment Leslie see's Brigette Lin, the story continues to concentrate how the two interact with each other. The love scene is breathtaking with the falling cascades of water around the couple. I have to say I did not expect to see such moves that Leslie made while filming the love scene with Brigette. For those who loves listening to Leslie, the theme song is a must buy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Epic, Operatic, Enjoyable
Review: If you liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, then see The Bride With White Hair. Drawn from the same sword and sorcery tradition, both movies feature strong female leads. In the case of Bride, we have Brigitte Lin Ching Hsua, one of Hong Kong's most popular female stars. Brigitte is beautiful and compelling; more fey than Zhang Ziyi, she is a sorcerous assassin at the top of her game. Her meeting with the male lead, Leslie Cheung (a singer-actor best known in the US for his role in as Chen Dieyi in Farewell, My Concubine) is either accidental or destined, depending on how you look at it, but it changes her world and his.

The visual style of the film is spectacular, thanks in no small part to cinematographer Peter Bao. Director Ronny Yu Yan-Tai, who has been compared to Ridley Scott, is not very well known in the United States yet, but he's got a pretty good following world-wide. (Yes, yes. He directed Bride of Chucky. I'm not going to defend or attack him for that, because I've never seen it.) In Bride he conducts, like the best of the fantasy Hong Kong masters, an opera or ballet. Every word, every move is larger than life, everything fraught with meaning, promise or threat--this is not "everyman" action; this is epic. Like many epics, it sometimes does suffer from excess.

Bride is, in my opinion, not quite as good at humanizing its characters as Tiger. Both are Romeo and Juliet stories, but Lin's Lien Ni Chang and Cheung's Zhou Yi Hang are not as fully rendered as the star-crossed lovers of Tiger (either pair). They're archetypes. But they're grand and glorious archetypes. Who cares that Lien Ni Chang was raised by wolves who somehow taught her the mastery of wind instruments? Who cares how precisely the villains came by their genetic-defying bond? That isn't the point in this film, and people who allow themselves to bog down on these issues are, I believe, depriving themselves of a transporting film experience. Go willing to enjoy, and you probably will.

Those disturbed by the loose ending of Tiger, be warned: Bride isn't likely to satisfy you much more. If the "what then?" haunts you too much, you can find an answer in The Bride With White Hair II. It returns all the major characters and picks up where the other left off.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: What's The Big Deal?
Review: After all these years, I finally saw "Bride With White Hair" after purchasing the DVD. I had high expectations and was utterly disappointed. Perhaps so many films like it have come and gone since then but in the end it is too stylized and dated. The evil siamese twins were just too annoying and not even frightful. The "martial arts" is so bad and not even laughable. The editors seemed to like editing a lot to the point of dizziness. This is the kind of film that makes me hope for the "old school" of martial arts filmmaking to return. At least with a Liu Chia Liang or Chang Cheh film, they show more realistic techniques with little or no "enhanced" effects. Their effects were simple small trampolines and tricky film speeds. However, there are those that would like films like "Bride With White Hair" and this should suffice.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Emphasis placed on the story
Review: Please do not watch this movie hoping to see a whole lot of martial arts, because it is just not there. This movie is a love story, which to me this along w/the sequel is just one long movie. They should have never broke up the two movies into 1 hour and 28 minutes and 1 hour and 18 minutes, and just made it one movie.

Bride with White Hair is the story of Zhou Yi-Hang (Leslie Cheung). It shows his coming of age from his first rebellious decisions, to his last. The movie continues to depict him making decisions, and how they affect the ones he loves, and the Wu-Tang clan who takes care of him.

His decision to fall in love and pursue Lian Nichang (Brigitte Lin) who is a rival of his clan, and whose only goal is to kill off his group only tears apart his followers, and the elders of his clan. However, Lian Nichang decides Zhou Yi-Hang and his idea for both of them to be independent of their clans is the best way for them to go and have a life together.

Of course they get caught in a "Westside Story/Romeo and Juliet" type situation, where Zhou Yi-Hang is caught in the middle, has to make another tough decision that will again decide the final outcome of both his clan, and the clan that wishes to destroy them. This decision will intern effect his relationship w/Lian Nichang.

Story wise and beautiful scenery wise (not as nice as CTHD and Hero, but still nice) this is a five star movie, martial arts wise I would give it a two. This movie is worth watching, but not if your looking for action.

Grade: B+


Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great movie, lousy transfer
Review: First, the movie: I saw this film in the mid 90s at a film festival in Houston. I had no information or expectations before-hand. I just sat in a dark room and it showed up in front of me. It immediately went on my top 10 list and I dragged all of my friends to see it a few days later. It's way over the top in every dimension. Visually stunning and unapologetically emotional. Brigitte Lin kicks ass so hard you can actually believe that a goth-fu loner like Leslie Cheung would turn the world upside down just for her.

Second, the DVD: Blech. A soft, non-anamorphic transfer of an ugly print. Gargantuan subtitles fill a big chunk of the image. Not a significant improvement over the Tai Seng US release laserdisc.

5 star movie, 2 star DVD.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hong Kong film classic
Review: I've watched this film over and over again since it's DVD release. I've never tired of watching it. It is a beautifully sad and romantic tale. Brigitte Lin is so lovely even her famous icy stare of death. Leslie Cheung (rest in peace) what a wonderful actor! We will miss him dearly.
Brigitte and Leslie had tremendous on-screen chemistry and the cinematography is breathtaking. This is not a karate chop and sock film. There are some short fight scenes. I feel sorry for people that did not understand this movie. It is a true ART film and displays Hong Kong filmmaking at it's best.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Romantic love story that makes me cry each time I watch it..
Review: It's a great love story.... and to me, it is not even close to being compared to Romeo and Juliet. This movie has it's own tragic love story.... To me, it's extremely better than Romeo and Juliet....

I love watching this movie especially with my husband, it just teaches the men to TRUST their women and not someone else. Or else their life can get very ugly.... =)

Every women should get this movie and watch it with their significant other....


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