Purple Butterfly (2004)
45 %
Reviews Counted: 20 Fresh: 9 Rotten:11 Average Rating: 5.5/10
Consensus:
Ye Lou's Purple Butterfly is atmospheric and moody, but the story is frustratingly muddled.
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 2 hrs 7 mins
Theatrical Release: Nov 26, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: This melancholic, brooding romantic thriller stars Zhang Ziyi (HERO; CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) as Ding Hui, a Chinese woman who is part of a secret anti-Japanese terrorist organization in 1931 Shanghai. Three years earlier, under her real name, Cynthia, she was a factory worker in... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Ziyi Zhang, Liu Ye, Feng Yuangzheng, Toru Nakamura, Li Bingbing
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Reviews
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06/24/06
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09/26/05
The plot may be a little hard to follow, but the film-making is skillful and any effort on the viewer’s part is well worth it
05/28/05
At the center of it all is, of course, Zhang. Charismatic and intense, she excels in her most grown-up role to date.
02/25/05
Top Critic
Just like nuclear energy, long cinematic pauses can be used properly for the benefit of all, while in the wrong hands they can cause mass misery.
02/02/05
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01/24/05
There are two movies battling for supremacy in Butterfly, and both lose. As does the audience.
01/21/05
Top Critic
A gorgeous period melodrama, packed with romantic tragedy and violent intrigue, it is both gritty and dreamy, political and personal.
01/14/05
As atmospheric and moody as a film noir, the stylish, sometimes perplexing Purple Butterfly is a remarkable period piece, evoking the bustling, dense and increasingly dangerous Shanghai of the '30s.
01/13/05
Top Critic
... rich with emotional turmoil and searing beauty, but it could have used a little more time in the editing room to make sense of it all.
01/10/05
The art of it is entirely in the atmospherics; the rest is melodrama. Its 127 minute exercise in puzzle solving is draining.
01/09/05
The characters are less compelling than this particular slice of history, which has rarely been dramatized in movies.
01/07/05
Give in to the mood piece and bathe in its glamorous nostalgic glow. It's a beauty.
12/03/04
Mr. Lou synthesizes a wide range of styles and influences -- from Casablanca to Wong Kar-wai -- resulting in a movie that, for all its haunting strangeness, seems curiously familiar.
11/29/04
Top Critic
Top Critic
Too often, Purple Butterfly is as impenetrable as Zhang's placid, obdurate beauty.
11/24/04
Top Critic
An often remarkable, often infuriating lateral spin on genre material that desperately needs another sesh at the editing table.
11/24/04
Top Critic
History is scant or purposefully blurred in Lou Ye's abstruse Purple Butterfly, a war drama with Wong-like delusions of love
11/16/04
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Purple Butterfly Coming To North America
by: Southern Crane 1/29/04
by: Southern Crane 1/29/04
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