[yasr_overall_rating]
In the twilight of the Ming Dynasty, the Imperial court is plagued by corruption as tyrants rule over the land. With the Manchurians preying on a weakened empire, war is imminent. To save the victims from their suffering, sorceress Jade Raksha fights the soldiers that oppress people for their own gain.
“White Haired Witch” tells the story of a corrupt Ming Dynasty where the kingdom is in a state of uncertainty and disarray. The people are on the verge of war because of dishonest government officials and their premeditated scheming so to avert the people’s attention from them, the traitors within the government incriminate sorceress Jade Raksha (Fan Bingbing), a local witch in the death of Governor Zhuo Zhonglian and try to turn the people against her instead of them. But there’s one big problem, Jade has fallen in love with Zhuo Yihang (Huang Xiaoming), the dead Governor’s grandson and on top of fighting the people and the kingdom’s military, she and her people must try and prove to Zhuo that she is innocent and find the real killers within the government.
The story laid out in front of you is very simple and straightforward but unfortunately, the filmmakers allow themselves to get caught up in every single faucet and aspect of all the main and secondary characters and this, sadly, diverts your attention away from the central storyline and the most important element of the film. We don’t need to know too much about secondary characters and their backstories and past lives, and even some of the main characters are given unnecessary narratives that deviate into extraneous flashbacks and drawn-out tales that by the time we come back to the central story and its fundamentals, the filmmakers have already made the grave mistake of prolonging an already lengthy story into, literally, epic-sized proportions that has you looking at your watch.
I have grown very fond of Chinese and Asian films in general over the past couple of years. Subtitles used to bother me and while personally, I’d much rather listen to a dubbed-over version of a movie, when the film is intriguing and keeps you captivated, you hardly notice the subtitles at all. “White Haired Witch” is absolutely stunning to watch. The beautiful cinematography more than makes up for a lackluster film in general and the musical score is, at times, rousing, accompanying some spectacular martial arts choreography and wire stunt work but in the end, these components are not enough to save a movie that could have been spectacular.
On Blu-ray and DVD March 10th
