White Snake

White Snake (2019) is a Chinese animated fantasy from Light Chaser Animation — watch it online on iFILM. Directors Amp Wong and Zhao Ji built the film around a prequel to one of China's oldest folk tales, set five centuries before the familiar story begins.

A young snake demon named Blanca is sent to assassinate a tyrannical general who harvests serpent spirits for dark power. The mission goes wrong, and she wakes up in a snake-catcher's village with no memory — not even her own name. The man who finds her, Xuan, is gentle and entirely unprepared for what she actually is. Together they follow a jade hairpin toward a magical craftsman's shop that might unlock her past, while her green-serpent sister races to find her and the general's forces close in.

Light Chaser Animation pitched this squarely against the Japanese school: the water sequences and colour palette feel like a deliberate argument. The romance earns its bittersweet ending because it never goes soft on what these two are. Stream White Snake (2019) in full online on iFILM.