Yes, starring Ti Lung as a giant snake monster. And it's a romance fantasy flick.
The Snake Prince is a 1976 Shaw Brothers romance-fantasy film directed by Lo Chen, starring Ti Lung as the eponymous character.
A Spiritual Adaptation of the ancient Chinese myth of Madam White Snake
, but with a twist that both its characters' genders are flipped around. Set in a rural Hmong village suffering from severe drought, the superstitious villagers are desperate for divine intervention, resorting to them praying to the animal tribes. Their prayers are answered by the Snake people, whose leader, the Snake Prince, an immortal deity, decides to help the village. Along the way, the Snake Prince ends up falling for Hei-qin, a young village maiden...
The Snake Prince contains examples of:
- Cool Crown: The Snake Prince wears an impressive golden crown with a cobra motif sticking out its front. When Hei-qin gets accepted into the snake people’s tribe, she gets a similar crown as well.
- Divine Intervention: Invoked by the villagers, in an attempt to summon rain to put an end to their village's drought. But instead of the gods, however, it's the Snake people who answered their prayers.
- Fantastic Racism: Humans towards snake people.
- Gender Flip: A rather straightforward adaptation of Madam Whitesnake, except the titular snake is a man who fell in love with a human lady.
- The Great Serpent: The movie ends with the titular Prince revealing his true form in the final scene after being exposed to Sulphur smoke — as a giant serpentine beast. This is one of the few examples where the serpent is on the side of good, and was merely a victim of Fantastic Racism from the ungrateful villagers who feared the good prince.
- Humans Are Bastards: An immortal Snake Prince with supernatural powers just saved a village suffering from drought, and all he asks in exchange is Hei-qin, the human woman whom he loves, to be his bride, which she is willing because she loves him as well. So of course, the logical step is for villagers to raid the Snake Prince’s domain with burning sulphur and attempt to kill the benevolent Prince.
- Interspecies Romance: An immortal Snake Prince and a human woman.
- Involuntary Shapeshifter: The Snake Prince’s true form is revealed after being exposed to too much burning sulphur, which is a giant, serpentine monster some twenty meters in length.
- Kill It with Fire: How the Snake Prince meets his end by flung torches, while being weakened by sulphur smoke no less.
- Logical Weakness: The villagers correctly deduce that the weakness of reptiles are sulphur, as such the final raid on the Snake Prince’s domain involves burning massive quantities of sulphur powder, with the smoke being used to force the Prince out of hiding.
- Memorial Statue: After the final scene, the movie then shifts to a Time Skip to the present – in which a pair of statues depicting Hei-qin and the Snake Prince are built, on the same hill where they both died, overlooking the cliff.
- Musical Episode: There’s a musical number early on in the film depicting the townspeople performing their rain dance, and later on the Snake Prince gets to sing while serenading Hei-qin, which she responds by partaking in a duet with him.
- Oddball in the Series: A film starring Shaw Brothers leading badass and killing machine, Ti Lung, made in the time when he’s famously known as an action star who takes plenty of names onscreen, and it’s a fantasy-romance musical. Imagine going through a marathon of Ti Lung’s period-pieces and classics, and stumbling into this movie halfway through… (It’s even more hilarious if you watch this movie between The Heroic Ones and Duel Of The Iron Fist, two death-heavy action films with Lung doing a lot, a lot, a LOT of fighting. It’s as jarring and out-of-place as it sounds.)
- Our Demons Are Different: The Snake Prince and his people, much like spirits from old Chinese Mythology, are implied to be demons of sorts, but they can take the form of humans.
- People in Rubber Suits: Towards the end of the film as the Snake Prince reveals his One-Winged Angel form as a giant serpentine monster, that effect is achieved by having stuntmen dressed as in realistic-looking giant snake outfits, with assistance of wirework for maneuvering the giant snake's tails and heads.
- Prayer Is a Last Resort: The opening sequence depicts the villagers praying for the gods to put an end to their drought, which attracts the attention of the Snake Prince and his followers to perform their ritual and save the village.
- Protagonist Title
- Snakes Are Sinister: Completely inverted with the Snake people. The snake tribe are friendly and as benign as they can get, they are willing to co-exist with the human villagers. The humans, on the other hand…
- Snake People: The Snake Prince and his tribe. They took on human appearances when approaching the villagers, but when exposed to burning sulphur they start shedding skin and showing scales, as well as developing snake-like features such as serpentine body parts.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: The romance between Hei-qin and the Snake Prince, despite them having genuine feelings of love for each other, is doomed to fail right from the start, considering the villagers’ stigma towards the snake people.
- Tail Slap: The Snake Prince, in his One-Winged Angel form, uses his tail to defend himself from angry villagers.
- This Was His True Form: Inverted, when the Snake Prince, in the form of a giant snake, succumbs to his injuries, he turns back to the human form he uses for most of the film. Which is, the form of the actor, Ti Lung.
- Together in Death: Upon the Snake Prince’s death, Hei-qin promptly commits suicide to be with him forever.
- Torches and Pitchforks: An entire mob of angry villagers tries attacking the Snake Prince in his cave while carrying these weapons. As well as kegs of flammable sulphur powder.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The villagers who promptly decides the Snake People have no right to co-exist with them… despite the Snake Prince saving their village from drought. To the point of deciding to kill the Prince.
