By Brandon Nolta

Any film fan who watches more than, say, three films made somewhere besides Hollywood realizes that different cultures use different storytelling grammars and conventions. In some cases, the differences aren’t so large. In others, the difference can be startling. Hong Kong films are a good case in point; by Western standards, HK cinema is often chaotic, wildly melodramatic, and done on the cheap, laughably so in many cases. Once you’ve seen a couple, though, you realize that much of that initial impression is due to cultural factors, and you can enjoy the stories on their own merits. There are many great HK films to enjoy, but one of the most deliriously fun to watch is the 1993 classic THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR.

The film opens with reluctant hero Cho Yi-Hang (Leslie Cheung) sitting on a mountain, guarding a fabled rose rumored to grant healing and possibly immortality to those who ingest it. Since it only blooms every 20 years, one might understand the demand for such a thing. Anyway, after beating up some royal retainers trying to save their king, we flashback a few years, to when Cho was but a boy. After his parents die, Cho is taken in by the leader of the Eight Clans (Fang Pao) and groomed by his master to succeed him as Joint Chief. Cho grows up to become a mighty swordsman, but has a serious handicap: he’s just too damn nice. He’d rather forgive wrongs, protect the helpless and give peace a chance than slaughter his enemies where they stand, a stance that puzzles his master and rubs his rival Ho Lu Hua (Kit Ying Lam) the wrong way, especially as she wants the Joint Chief gig.


Anyway, as Cho reaches the point where the Joint Chief is raring to retire, an evil cult led by the creepy Ji Wushuang siblings (Francis Ng, Elaine Lui) is rising up in Manchuria. Powered by black magic and suppressed incestuous feelings (which they would probably act on if they weren’t twins conjoined at the lower back), the siblings are laying waste all around, and the Eight Clans decide to gear up. But, the bad guys have a secret weapon: a girl raised by wolves known as Lien (Brigitte Lin), who’s hell on wheels and wields a rope in ways even Jet Li would admire. Naturally, Cho and Lien fall in love at first sight, even while the creepy cult advances on the Eight Clans. Nobody else seems happy about their love, and after a few clever misdirections, assorted beatings and beheadings, the showdown arrives, boiled down to Cho, Lien and the creepy twins. Thanks to betrayal and a broken oath, Lien goes from being a foxy warrior babe with a rope to a foxy warrior witch with pure white hair, who no longer needs a rope because her hair can do it all. Soon enough, one hell of a fight erupts, and the betting on who will survive can begin.


HK cinema, at least the stuff that makes it to America, generally has certain things: slammin’ action, beautifully vivid sets and costumes, wirework and oddball humor. THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR has all of these and more, but it’s got one thing in particular that this reviewer isn’t used to seeing in HK action films: sex. There’s a lot of it, implied and direct, which colors the film in all sorts of interesting ways. It’s not so much that there’s a ton of nudity (although there is more than I expected), but there’s a strong undercurrent of lust in this film, which weirdly enough made the film feel more realistic. That seems like a strange claim for a film featuring black magic and folks flying around like they just arrived from Krypton, but love stories in many HK films often feel antiseptic. Not here; Lin and Cheung sell it, by golly. It’s clear their characters are hot for each other, which makes some of their actions believable. Ng and Lui do the same for their characters, but since their characters are siblings … eww. The point is, the acting all around is good, and the love story does a good job of grounding some of the more exuberant spectacle of the film. It’s not Shakespeare, but THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR is sharp entertainment, and thanks to its love story, more moving than many of its colleagues from the former British colony. Grab it if you can.