I first came across this title reading an Wikipedia article about the history of anime, as well as an Animatorium article on "The 15 Best Animations You've Never Heard Of". It took some time before I finally checked it out online just a few months ago in March and I saw it again only last month. I saw and heard only the original Japanese version, and plan to see the English dub as well eventually. Before discovering this, I had never heard of the Chinese folktale under its original title, "Hakujaden: Tale of the White Serpent", so this adaptation is the first one I've seen. But it's one of the hallmarks of color anime films.
Prior to the modern anime that followed from the late 1960s onward, it's enchanting how those are worlds apart from the more Disney-esque anime of the formative decades and had yet to find their own distinctive identity that set it apart from Western animation. As for the technical aspects of this, they're almost perfect. Particularly I'm talking about the animation, and even more specially, when the characters speak. It seems that, at times, when they're heard speaking, there's no mouth/lip movement. Aside from one instance in which one character's lines are heard but there's no mouth movement possibly because there's an instance of thinking involved instead, it could've been done better. Next thing to mention, the characters. I enjoyed all of them: The two heroes, Xu Xian and Bai Niang, Bai Niang's mistress, Shao-Chin, Panda and Mimi the Red Panda, all of them. Then the music, as nice as the Chinese-style songs are, what caught me the most was the tune that one of the pigs plays. It sounded familiar to me and I might have heard it before, but I can't think of the artist who originally performed it at the moment. The colors, the backgrounds, everything else about it is great. Since the previous, two, other reviewers went over the plot of this, I'll just talk a little about what's included in it and one of my favorite parts. One aspect of it features the supernatural, as in the case of Bai Niang and her powers. There are plenty of good and funny moments, like when a drunk guy sees Bai Niang in her snake form and he thinks she's a hallucination.
I won't say anymore about it than what has already been said. I'll just let all those who haven't already seen it, watch it for themselves. It's well worth it and not to be skipped, love it.
