The Snake Prince [蛇王子] (1976)
Starring Ti Lung, Lin Chen-Chi, Helen Ko, Fan Lei, Wong Yu, Ng Hong-Sang, Wong Ching-Ho, Cheng Miu, Leung Seung-Wan, Lam Wai-Tiu, Norman Chu Siu-Keung, Tsang Choh-Lam
Directed by Lo Chen
Expectations: Excited, but I’m not sure what to expect.
The Snake Prince is easily one of the most unusual Shaw Brothers films I’ve seen. It combines a full-on musical with fantasy and folklore to create an unforgettable film you’ll either love or hate. I love a good musical, so to have one with funky ’70s music, the usual Shaw Brothers feel and a bunch of snake-driven fantasy, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. There’s also a bit of martial art action here and there, but it’s not treated like the fights of more traditional films. They aren’t edited for tension at all, instead there are a lot of long, unbroken takes that allow the physicality of the actors to really be appreciated. But don’t expect anything too exciting in this regard, it’s more like a few sprinkles on top of a donut instead of something more substantial. If you aren’t diggin’ the rest of the movie, the fights aren’t going to be enough to make it worth it.
A small mountain village is in the middle of a severe drought. The villagers pray (via a funky song, of course) for the rains to return so their crops can thrive again. After the opening credits introduce us to the Snake Prince, we return to the villagers, again in song. During this celebration, the Snake Prince (Ti Lung) and his two snake friends (Wong Yu & Ng Hong-Sang) enter the town disguised as villagers. They dance and sing with the humans, and a trio of sisters catches their snake eyes. The Snake Prince is especially smitten with Hei Qin (Lin Chen-Chi), but a trio of men from the village (who I assumed were the boyfriends of the sisters, but they never said they were) run the snake guys out of town. This is where one of the bigger action scenes happens, but it’s more like stage fighting than anything resembling what was occurring in the other films of 1976.