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Film: The Bride with White Hair II (Bai fa mo nu zhuan II)
Year: 1993
Director: David Wu
Writer: David Wu and Ronny Yu
Starring: Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung and Christy Chung
Review:
This film begins filling us in on what happened in the previous film. Leslie Cheung is still waiting on the mountain that he was in during the end of the last film, awaiting for the special flower to bloom in order to save his bride who has become cursed.
We then see that the clans that have banded together and we see that they are angry that the bride with white hair, played by Brigitte Lin, has been coming through the last ten years, killing men. We then see that they are to the point now where they need to fight back. There are going to have a wedding though first for the eldest brother, he is played by Sunny Chan. The woman he is to marry is the beautiful Yee-Man Man. One of the brothers keeps putting his foot in his mouth, talking about Lin attacking during the wedding night.
This is what ends up happening. She attacks and kills off most of the brothers here. Chan is severely wounded and Man is kidnapped. She is taken back to where Lin resides and we then learn that she has been taking potential brides for years. She has created her own clan of these women. They do have some men, but they are treated as slaves to them. Also in this camp is the bride of a warrior who guarded the wall. She is played by Ruth Winona Tao. She is going about to convince Man to join their clan and that she doesn’t need Chan.
A young woman shows up to where Chan was left for dead and has been nursing him back to full health. She dresses like a man and does things that are not very lady-like, she is played by Christy Chung. She has a crush on Chan and is upset that he married Man instead of her. She is an accomplished warrior as well.
When Chan is finally ready to fight, he tries to leave to kill Lin. Chung stops him and tells him that everyone wants to kill Lin, but he isn’t strong enough to do it alone. There is a then a call out to the remaining clans to send a warrior so they can mount a rescue to save Man as well as to defeat Lin.
Chan and Chung are part of this group and they are joined by Kwok Leung Cheung, Lily Chung and Richard Suen. There is a mystery guy there who turns out to be Chan’s brother, the one who seemed to jinx his wedding night and he had thought died. Someone starts to run up on this group and Chung shoots three arrows at this person. This person has long hair and in the moonlight, it looks white. The person takes the arrows to the face. They go to see that it is and it turns out not be Lin, but an elder woman played by Heung Kam Lee. She had caught the arrows with her teeth though and survived. She reveals that she is there, because they have no younger warriors in her clan so they decided to send her.
This group comes up with a plan and attacks where Lin is held up. Their plan doesn’t go as they hoped, but Chan gets into the main hall with his brother. He does find Man, but she seems to have been bewitched and doesn’t come with him willingly. Chan decides they should flee, but his brother points out that they need to kill the witch before they do or this was wasted. She shows up and they are defeated.
This attack has left Chung poisoned by the hair of Lin. If she uses Kung Fu, she will die. It turns out that Chan’s brother is also in love with her. What will happen with Chung. Will she survive? Can Lin be defeated? Cheung is actually Chan’s uncle, will he come back to help or will he stay on the mountain, waiting for the flower?
This film is an interesting sequel to me. One of my issues with the original is that Lin isn’t cursed until the very end and it practically ends. This film, she is cursed the whole time. I also like that all of the characters that are brought back for this one, are played by the same actors. This film also fills in some of the back-story for Lin, which I personally liked. I actually also liked that Lin is kidnapping women who were in a similar position as her, because it felt to me that this is almost a feminist look on the society of China. The women are treated as lesser to men, there is a point where Yeung calls out a man playing lyre and he freaks out. She points that when she was yelled at while performing; she took it, unlike him. This seems to be almost a creation of a counterculture that has taken it a 180 degree turn. This clan also fails, which I read as for a worthy society there needs to be equal rights.
This film does have some issues for me. I didn’t like Cheung is not really used until the very end. I liked him in the previous film and would have liked to see more of him. This film, much like its predecessor moves very fast through the story. Some times I would get confused and wasn’t sure what we jumped to. I wonder if this is because the film is in Cantonese and I had to read subtitles though. This film also has a bit of comedic nature that I could have done without. I’m not sure it was intended that way, but that is how it played on the screen.
Now with that said, I felt this wasn’t a bad Kung Fu/romance/horror film. This one is a bloodier than the previous one. This one is also good that Lin is cursed the whole time and it delves more into this. This film has a social commentary that I liked and made me think. It has a good acting, but I would have liked to see more from Cheung and a little less on the comedic aspect that seemed to be played out. This one can be watched on its own from the original, as this one will fill you in on what you need to know, but I recommend watching them back to back if you want the full story. This one is definitely not a bad film, but keep in mind that it is from Hong Kong and I had to watch it with subtitles on.
My Rating: 6 out of 10