Green Snake, or 青蛇, a film from 25 years ago, is a feminist, queer classic. The director is Tsui Hark 许克, who adapted it from a novel by Lillian Li 李碧华.
It’s an old folk tale re-told. But what is interesting to me though is of course Lillian Lee’s reinterpretation. It’s a story about the relationship between小青 Green Snake and 白素贞 White Snake, which is not the traditional story at all.
I love it when stories are queered; it means that somebody else is also thinking about this issue, and is sick of traditional story tropes. But I also like it that the film is compassionate towards men.
He’s not just a villain, which is how it normally would be in feminist circles. But Fa Hai has a fatal flaw, which makes him human. The film treats him in a compassionate way. He is just at fault as the others, and dogmatism has ruined his life. He thinks in right and wrong, in black and white. And at the end of film all of this is called into question.
And character of Xu Xian, the scholar trope who romances a good looking woman (in this case on the West Lake) but he is at the same time enticed by Xiao Qing, the Green Snake. But he isn’t going to act on it- the reason being not that he’s in love with White Snake, but because he’s not that interested in acting on it. Which I feel is what makes it essentially a Queer story.
In essence Lillian Li has it right about the folk tale.