English Dub Review: White Snake

White Snake is an interesting movie. Filled with punchy action scenes and colorful animation, it’s definitely not lacking when it comes to eye-candy. Where the film suffers is at the storytelling level. Based on a classic Chinese legend, this movie is a prequel of sorts where it’s a tale of boy meets girl. Or rather, boy meets a girl who turns out to be a giant snake demon? It’s kind of confusing and generic at the same time. But yeah, if you hate creatures the slither, this is not the movie for you.

But first, let’s get the good stuff out of the way. Visually, White Snake comes close to holding its own with movies from any top animation studio in the world. My favorite aspect of the movie has to be the character design. Coming up with character designs that are expressive and distinctive, yet simple, is difficult to do. I think the designs of the movie are fantastic, with looks that express a character’s personality while still being cohesive as a set. I particularly love Verta’s style and Xuan’s hair. The animation itself is also good, although not quite as striking as Pixar’s best. The fight sequences are rendered beautifully, but sometimes the cuts are a bit jarring. It doesn’t help that the character’s magic powers are a bit of an unknown quantity, making the colorful battles even harder to follow.

The characters themselves are a mixed bag. Blanca is ostensibly the main character from which the movie takes its name, but she’s a blank canvas – literally, at the start. I just never knew who she was aside from her relationship with Xuan. And boy, Xuan is probably the worst character. He’s clearly written to be the heroic male lead who never gives up, but what is he even fighting for? Blanca? They barely know each other and have very, very little chemistry. He even goes so far as to sacrifice his dog’s tail to make him a demon, which lowered my opinion of him even more. Verta, the younger sister, was probably my favorite with her emo vibe and utter distaste for humans.

Story-wise, White Snake is less breathtaking than its animation. Legends are often a bit generic around the edges. Year upon year of telling the same story will wear away the more unique parts in favor of making it more universal and simple to tell. And since this is a prequel to a legend, it’s ending is already predetermined. This adds up to a movie where nothing exciting ever really happens. The battles are fun to watch at first, but then you get the sense that rather than playing out the lives of these characters, it’s more like they’re just rushing to get to the next battle. There’s also a lack of levity. When everything is played with a straight face, nothing is. Xuan is dumb and slightly goofy, but not funny. The closest thing to comedy we get is his dog, which isn’t a lot. I think another review summed it up nicely when they wrote that it “feels less like a movie than a collection of cut-scenes from a game”.

And how does the English dub fair? Not quite up to the high levels that GKIDS normally produces, in my view.  Stephanie Sheh plays Blanca and Paul Yen is Xuan. Everyone sounds like I’d expect their character to sound, more or less. But all the dialogue is delivered half-heartedly. When he sees his love interest leap off a cliff and start hovering through the air, the amazement in Xuan’s response sounds like he just saw a penny on the ground and not a woman in the air. All the supposed emotional beats are underplayed. So while it was an okay dub in regards to casting, I take issue with the deliveries.

White Snake has a few things going for it. The visual design and the overall look of the film stand out. But in my mind, the pros don’t quite outweigh the cons. The characters are pretty bland for the most part and don’t feel real. The storyline is too safe and predictable. In the end, all the parts of the film don’t come together to make for a satisfying whole package. By the halfway point, I was ready to slither out of my seat.