It sneaks up on you. You come in for the gorgeous Light Chaser CG, all that rippling water and silk and mountain mist, and you leave wrecked by a snake catcher who chooses to stop being human. Xuan carving that paper crane and flying Blanca over the valley is the kind of romantic sequence most anime never earns, and it works because he keeps choosing her before he even knows what she is. Verta's contempt for humans isn't just villain noise either, she's the sister watching her family fall for the species that hunts them. And then the ending lands the prequel punch: memory gone, five hundred years passed, an umbrella at the Broken Bridge, and every viewer who knows the old legend feels the floor drop out. Dudou the dog gets more laughs than he has any right to.

Blanca wakes with no memory of who she is after being saved by Xuan, a snake catcher from a nearby village. Together they set out to learn her true identity, and their feelings for each other grow along the way. The deeper they dig into her past, the more they uncover a sinister scheme in which supernatural forces compete for power, with the fate of the world at stake. Framed as a prequel to a classic Chinese legend, the film blends demons, mythical beasts, assassins and wuxia action with a story of forbidden romance between a human and a demon.