The Bride with White Hair (Bai fa mo nu Zhuan) (1993)

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General		Extras
Category	Fantasy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Making Of Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Bride With White Hair 2 Trailer-Eastern Eye And Madman Trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	85:15 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (27:48)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ronny Yu
Studio Distributor	Mandarin Films Madman Entertainment	Starring	Brigitte Lin Leslie Cheung Kit Ying Lam Francis Ng Elaine Lui
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.30:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Cho Yi Hang of the Wu Tang Clan (Leslie Cheung) is being raised by his master to eventually lead the clan and become one of the eight clan masters. The clan is threatened by an evil cult led by a pair of Siamese twins joined at the back, one male and one female (Francis Ng and Elaine Lui), who were beaten out of the Wu Tang by Cho's master. The cult has recruited Lien, a girl raised by wolves (Brigitte Lin), and trained her to become their chief assassin. She's quite deadly with a whip. The male part of the Siamese twins lusts after her also.

    After a skirmish in which Cho involves himself he rescues Lien and saves her life. Naturally they fall in love, but clan politics and the lust of the Siamese twins brings destruction down on the clan and threatens to come between Cho and Lien.

    Well, on re-reading that brief synopsis I find it does not really do the film justice. Perhaps the main attraction is the visual style, which was quite innovative and striking for 1993 (it seems less so now). There is stunning image after stunning image by cinematographer Peter Pau and director Ronnie Yu, and while the plot, based on a 1954 novel, tends to creak and the villains are over-the-top in true Hong Kong style, the leads are endearing and the Romeo and Juliet love story is the peg on which the plot hangs. It all works extremely well and is sometimes very erotic without showing very much. The leads have a definite screen chemistry. Surprisingly the movie received a Category II rating in Hong Kong despite the brief nudity and the at times extreme violence.

    This fine film spawned a sequel which is reportedly not very good. It has also just been released on DVD.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.30:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    This is a reasonably good transfer. While not ideally sharp (there is a slight fuzziness overall) it is quite detailed and the glorious cinematography comes across well. Contrast levels are good though shadow detail is problematic. The latter is not surprising since there is a heavy reliance on shadows throughout to create atmosphere. Colour is very good, with the blues and oranges that dominate the film well rendered.

    There are some MPEG artefacts visible in some of the fast motion sequences and in the backgrounds of some of the darker sequences, with low level noise in evidence. There is also some slight motion blurring.

    There are few video artefacts to speak of, mainly just infrequent small white flecks.

    The English subtitles are removable and are in clear yellow font. They are readable but some appear on screen too fleetingly to be read. Grammar and spelling are satisfactory.

    The disc is RSDL formatted with the layer change placed quite early in the film at 27:48. It is a little disruptive to some music playing at the time.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The sole audio track is Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. There is no surround encoding.

    This is a good audio track. Dialogue, which seems to be post-synched, is clear. The sound is reasonably full and there is a good frequency range. It seems slightly distorted in the upper registers, but this is only a minor complaint. There is reasonable stereo separation and the overall effect is pleasing.

    The score by an uncredited composer - it may be stock music, but I doubt it - is very good. There are lots of drums which sound quite full on the soundtrack, plus a range of instruments which fit in well with the visuals. There is also a song sung by Leslie Cheung.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

    The main menu is nicely designed, animated with some sequences from the film and features some of the music.

Featurette-Making Of (12:02)

    This featurette looks like it was made for television as publicity for the film, and features interviews with cast and crew. It is in Cantonese has burned in English subtitles. The cinematographer is subtitled as "Peter Pan", but he must have grown up into Peter Pau. My player could not play this extra, as after a few seconds it went back to the menu. On another player I managed to play it through, but there were quite a number of break-ups in the image, with large green pixels appearing. It did not appear to be dirt on the disc, as a thorough cleaning made no difference.

Theatrical Trailer (3:26)

    An original trailer, widescreen but not 16x9 enhanced and without subtitles. I had the same trouble playing this extra as I did on the above one.

Trailer-Bride With White Hair 2 (1:27)

    A trailer for the sequel, again not 16x9 enhanced and again not easy to play.

Trailer-Eastern Eye And Madman Trailers (21:18)

    Trailers for numerous live action and anime films, some twelve in all.

    The US Region 1 release has the same making of featurette and some cast and crew biographies, but is not 16x9 enhanced. It does have surround encoding on the soundtrack.

    The UK Region 2 release has some notes by Stephen Teo, but again is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The Hong Kong release is again not 16x9 enhanced and only has a mono soundtrack.

    I think that the Region 4 is to be preferred given the widescreen enhancement.

    A standout Hong Kong film for the cinematography and chemistry between the leads, though the fantasy elements take some getting used to.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    A couple of problematic extras, given the mastering.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall