... aka: Cobra Girl
... aka: Fangs of the Cobra
... aka: Man, Snake, Rat
... aka: Yan se shi
Directed by:
Chung Sun
Innocent, sheltered teenager Ah-Fen Yang (Yao Hsiao) has spent her entire life in a quiet, remote farming village away from all troubles and worries. Since she has no mother or close human friends, not surprisingly, she's strongly bonded to her favorite pet. Only instead of a dog or a cat, Ah-Fen has opted for a snake. A damn COBRA, no less. Instead of keeping the venomous, deadly, beady-eyed serpent in a cage 24 / 7 where it belongs, Ah-Fen merrily runs through the fields with it, swims with it, plays chase with it, pets it, has conversations with it (which are a bit one-sided as you can imagine), baby talks it and does all kind of other cutesy-creepy things with the serpent while whimsical, lighthearted music plays. When it's time to go home, her scaly BFF, called Xixi, then goes to sleep in a little clay pot outside. Ah-Fen's father (Chih-Ching Yang) frowns upon her keeping the snake as a pet, but she assures him that since she's raised Xixi from birth and the snake has never bitten her or anyone else, there's no reason to start worrying about it now.
While passing through the countryside, Shi-de Tang (Hua Tsung) has car problems, pulls over and is attacked by a den of snakes, which he's forced to beat off with a stick. Ah-Fen happens to wander by soon after, and he's instantly struck by the girl's good looks and sweet demeanor. However, having just finished five year's worth of business studies abroad, Shi-de's is in the area, he hopes, only temporarily to help out at the family farm at his father's request. He's hoping to leave as soon as he can, so there's no time for romance now, right? Besides, the farm isn't easy to run. It's a massive commercial business with separate wings for pigs, chickens and vegetables, plus orchards, greenhouses and fish ponds.
Despite Shi-de's reluctance to be there, his father (Miao Ching) needs him to take care of the financial end of the farm, while adopted son Hu Lin (Hung Wei) will do more of the hands-on, day-to-day managerial work. Mr. Tang is also past ready to become a grandfather and wants his son to marry and start raising kids as soon as possible. He proposes the idea of Shi-de marrying Man-ling (Dana), a business school drop-out who also works on the farm. Little do they know, but Man-ling is already conspiring with Hu Lin (her lover) to seduce and then marry Shi-de so they can get their mitts on the families 30 million dollar business and estate.
Alas, Shi-de just can't forget about his brief encounter with the poor, sweet, pretty farm girl. He tracks Ah-Fen down and, with her father's blessing, she accompanies him around the area as a guide. The two get carjacked by three thugs, who tie them up, take them deep into the woods and throw them inside a house with metal doors and barred windows. The whole scheme was part of a (really idiotic) plan devised by Hu Lin and Man-ling, only Man-ling was supposed to be the girl in the car with him that day, not Ah-Fen. The goal was that the kidnapping scenario would force Shi-de to spend some quality time with Man-ling in a "love shack" so she could work her seductive charms on him.
Even though Shi-de and Ah-Fen don't lay a hand on one another during their night alone, it's enough for Shi-de to propose marriage to her. Naturally, Man-ling and Hu Lin are furious and continue to plot against them, but they're not the only ones who are angry. Did you forget about poor 'lil Xixi (pronounced "She-She") the cobra? When Ah-Fen tells her she's set to be married and will no longer be able to see her every day, Xixi slithers back down into her pot to pout. Yes, this snake can understand some English and will bob up and down, or sway left and right, to answer "yes" or "no" (!) to questions. When it comes to the prospect of being separated from her pal, Xixi is all sways. Nope. Not gonna happen.
On the big day, Man-ling and Hu Lin attempt to blow up the bridal car transporting Ah-Fen and her father to the wedding but Xixi manages to save the day but turning up in the floorboards, forcing the driver to pull over and everyone to jump out and run right before the car explodes. At the wedding ceremony, Xixi turns up yet again under the bed covers. While this causes some friction between the newlywed couple (Shi-de hates all snakes because his mother was killed by one), they have bigger problems to deal with after Hu Lin gets caught embezzling money from the company and hires some thugs to terrorize Shi-de and a now-pregnant Ah-Fen. Xixi, who's been stalking the couple the entire time and serving as a guardian angel of sorts (whether the snake-hating husband likes it or not!) then steps in to help.
So what we have here is a film that aspires to please everybody but turns into such an oddball misfire that it's not likely to please anyone. Thrown into the pot are heated soap opera melodrama, lots of long, lingering shots of nice outdoor scenery, three long soft-core sex scenes (the specialty of co-star Dana), a couple of martial arts scenes, plentiful snake attack scenes, hokey romantic interludes complete with syrupy love ballads ("Just like a dreeeeammmm, only sweeeeeter...") and a gazillion wardrobe changes to show off the hottest duds of 1977 ("fashion films" were popular in Asia at the time). This was pretty much standard operating procedure for Shaw Brothers at the time, though. They were so busy with their internationally successful martial arts flicks in the 70s that they just kitchen sinked the hell out of most of their other genre stuff and called it a day.
Now what this film did do somewhat successfully is make me, an avowed snake hater, actually kind of like Xixi. It doesn't hurt that most of the human characters are either unlikable or outright trash, but it's basically impossible not to be in the snake's corner the entire time and also respect her dedication to her friend. The relationship between Ah-Fen and Xixi over the years is completely ridiculous yet oddly touching in a few scenes, like when she introduces the snake to her newborn baby. Props must also go to actress Yao Hsiao for constantly grabbing, handling, petting and having face-to-face conversations with her cobra co-star. Obviously the snake's fangs have been removed so she didn't have to die while making this, but I sure as hell wouldn't have been able to play her part! On the down side, some real snakes are killed here and there's also a bloody cobra vs. mongoose fight.
The Taiwanese-born director, who helped to bring modern camera technology such as the Steadicam to HK cinema, mostly made martial arts films but did dip his feet in the genre a couple of other times with the wuxia The Devil's Mirror (1972), Revenge of the Corpse (1981) and Human Lanterns (1982). There was a Hong Kong DVD release in 2007 on the Intercontinental Video Lt. Label that comes with English subtitles. Also an extremely rare English-dubbed version exists, which was released on VHS in Greece.
★★
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