MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. Tai Seng is a distributor of Asian movies, and they do a great job of making sure that Hong Kong action films find a wider audience. Sometimes, with a movie like "The Bride with White Hair," they go all out and subtitle it intelligently, dub it into English, and generally make sure you can understand it. Sometimes they don't bother. This is one of those times. I have seen this movie three times and I still have no idea what it's about. There are several reasons for this--first, it's a PRETTY darn convoluted plot. Second, it's subtitled in PRETTY bad English. Third, the subtitles are PRETTY hard to read. There are two sets of subtitles, English and Chinese, and both are white. Problem is, Andy Lau wears white the whole movie. Therefore, when he is speaking, you have white on white and no idea of what he's saying. Nevertheless, I will try to describe what I saw.
This is a fairly dull movie starring Andy Lau (is he in every movie made over there or what?) and Brigitte Lin (who should be in every movie made over there). According to the back of the DVD box, Andy Lau plays Smiling Sam, but he is rarely called that. Brigitte Lin, we are told, is "Samurai," but is NEVER called that. Brigitte Lin amazingly enough furnishes my first gripe of the movie. Her character is called Ming Jian in the movie, and he happens to be a man. No problem, she did that kind of thing all the time. However, I hate it when a man overdubs her voice--it's freaky. The words follow her mouth well, but it's just plain weird. (It also bothered me in "Swordman II," in all fairness. I am not just being hard on this movie.) My second gripe is, as mentioned earlier, not being able to understand a thing about what's happening. Apparently, there is some large fitness tournament where three kung fu masters are going to compete for the "best in the world" title. The three competitors are Smiling Sam (or whatever), Ming Jian, and Elvis Tsui's character (I don't recall hearing him called "Big Knife," and I didn't see it in any subtitles either. He does carry a large sword, though.) Unfortunately, somebody gets killed and Smiling Sam is implicated. I don't know who gets killed, because I couldn't tell, but the plot thickens when it is revealed that Sam had an affair with Somebody's wife. (You see what I mean about not knowing what's going on.) The Somebody is high up on the bureaucratic ladder, and demands that Sam be captured and killed. (Bear in mind that this is approximately thirty minutes into the movie, and while Brigitte Lin's character is mentioned many times, he doesn't show up. It's annoying to have a huge star in a movie when they just don't get any screen time.) Elvis Tsui is tapped to capture Sam. Sam hides (in a rather clever place), and it is soon revealed that Sam has been set up by person or persons unknown, and he is determined to reveal the lying creep. All of a sudden Ming Jian, a very influential person, shows up and vouches for Sam's credibility and swears he didn't do anything wrong. He does this by laying his family's reputation on the line.
Somewhere in all this are two princesses from a mountain tribe, or some such, and a shag carpet wearing weirdo who is apparently in cahoots with Ming Jian's wife (?). SPOILER HERE!!! As it happens, Ming Jian's wife, who totes a baby around the whole movie, is the one that has framed Sam. Not only that, she has stolen Sam's friend and hidden her someplace. She has all this to make Ming Jian the martial arts champion of the world, so you can't really hate her too much. No, wait. You can. This female character, whose name escapes me, is the nastiest, rottenest, bitchiest woman I've seen in one of these movies. She's horrible. She manages to avoid getting in fights by holding her baby as a human shield, which is despicable in itself. Then, to divert attention to breastfeeds it (which the other reviewer so tantalizingly mentions, ha ha), which of course causes everyone to literally "look the other way." All of this is unnecessary, because she can kill people with her hair. Yep, that's right. She strangles people to death with her long black tresses. (Brigitte Lin did that twice, only with long white tresses. Someone in Hong Kong must be running out of ideas...) She also rips a man's face off, and writes directions to Sam's friend on it. She entrusts this to the prince, who nervously crams it into a box. Ming Jian is understandably startled, and in protecting Sam inadvertently kills Wild Hair Woman. Bummer, dude. Finally, one thing leads to another and Sam and Ming Jian are pitted against each other in the martial arts duel of the century. Or not, however you want to look at it. The duel is nifty, since neither one wants to kill the other, but you have to sit through so much junk to get to it that most people won't make it. I stayed close to the TV assuming that Brigitte would show up any minute, only she rarely did. Most people are going to watch this for her, and it isn't worth it.
This is a fairly dull movie starring Andy Lau (is he in every movie made over there or what?) and Brigitte Lin (who should be in every movie made over there). According to the back of the DVD box, Andy Lau plays Smiling Sam, but he is rarely called that. Brigitte Lin, we are told, is "Samurai," but is NEVER called that. Brigitte Lin amazingly enough furnishes my first gripe of the movie. Her character is called Ming Jian in the movie, and he happens to be a man. No problem, she did that kind of thing all the time. However, I hate it when a man overdubs her voice--it's freaky. The words follow her mouth well, but it's just plain weird. (It also bothered me in "Swordman II," in all fairness. I am not just being hard on this movie.) My second gripe is, as mentioned earlier, not being able to understand a thing about what's happening. Apparently, there is some large fitness tournament where three kung fu masters are going to compete for the "best in the world" title. The three competitors are Smiling Sam (or whatever), Ming Jian, and Elvis Tsui's character (I don't recall hearing him called "Big Knife," and I didn't see it in any subtitles either. He does carry a large sword, though.) Unfortunately, somebody gets killed and Smiling Sam is implicated. I don't know who gets killed, because I couldn't tell, but the plot thickens when it is revealed that Sam had an affair with Somebody's wife. (You see what I mean about not knowing what's going on.) The Somebody is high up on the bureaucratic ladder, and demands that Sam be captured and killed. (Bear in mind that this is approximately thirty minutes into the movie, and while Brigitte Lin's character is mentioned many times, he doesn't show up. It's annoying to have a huge star in a movie when they just don't get any screen time.) Elvis Tsui is tapped to capture Sam. Sam hides (in a rather clever place), and it is soon revealed that Sam has been set up by person or persons unknown, and he is determined to reveal the lying creep. All of a sudden Ming Jian, a very influential person, shows up and vouches for Sam's credibility and swears he didn't do anything wrong. He does this by laying his family's reputation on the line.
Somewhere in all this are two princesses from a mountain tribe, or some such, and a shag carpet wearing weirdo who is apparently in cahoots with Ming Jian's wife (?). SPOILER HERE!!! As it happens, Ming Jian's wife, who totes a baby around the whole movie, is the one that has framed Sam. Not only that, she has stolen Sam's friend and hidden her someplace. She has all this to make Ming Jian the martial arts champion of the world, so you can't really hate her too much. No, wait. You can. This female character, whose name escapes me, is the nastiest, rottenest, bitchiest woman I've seen in one of these movies. She's horrible. She manages to avoid getting in fights by holding her baby as a human shield, which is despicable in itself. Then, to divert attention to breastfeeds it (which the other reviewer so tantalizingly mentions, ha ha), which of course causes everyone to literally "look the other way." All of this is unnecessary, because she can kill people with her hair. Yep, that's right. She strangles people to death with her long black tresses. (Brigitte Lin did that twice, only with long white tresses. Someone in Hong Kong must be running out of ideas...) She also rips a man's face off, and writes directions to Sam's friend on it. She entrusts this to the prince, who nervously crams it into a box. Ming Jian is understandably startled, and in protecting Sam inadvertently kills Wild Hair Woman. Bummer, dude. Finally, one thing leads to another and Sam and Ming Jian are pitted against each other in the martial arts duel of the century. Or not, however you want to look at it. The duel is nifty, since neither one wants to kill the other, but you have to sit through so much junk to get to it that most people won't make it. I stayed close to the TV assuming that Brigitte would show up any minute, only she rarely did. Most people are going to watch this for her, and it isn't worth it.
