Purple Butterfly (2004)
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... 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 Manchuria carrying on a romance with a Japanese man named Itami (Toru Nakamura) who has since become head of Japan's Shanghai branch of the secret service. As Japan and China prepare to go to war, Itami and Cynthia are doomed to face off against each other. Meanwhile, an innocent couple gets caught in the crossfire during a train station shootout, and the grief-stricken survivor, Szeto (Ye Liu), becomes a double agent in the war between the Chinese and Japanese spy groups. PURPLE BUTTERFLY is all about mood: lots of lingering close-ups of characters sulking in the rain, smoking lots of cigarettes in squalid rooms, or dying slowly from bullets lodged near the heart. The film's dreamy romance, restless handheld camerawork, and nonlinear plot recall the films of Wong Kar Wai, and fans of that director's work should be similarly seduced by this elegant Asian period film noir. A mesmerizing score by Jörg Lemberg helps the disparate pieces of the puzzle fall into place. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Ziyi Zhang, Liu Ye, Feng Yuangzheng, Toru Nakamura, Li Bingbing
DVD Info
Release:
Feb 15, 2005
DVD Features:
- Region (unknown)
- Keep Case
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- Surround Sound 5.1 English
Additional Release Material:
- Theatrical Trailer
- Previews
DVD Rom Features:
- Weblinks
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
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
At the center of it all is, of course, Zhang. Charismatic and intense, she excels in her most grown-up role to date.
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.
There are two movies battling for supremacy in Butterfly, and both lose. As does the audience.
A gorgeous period melodrama, packed with romantic tragedy and violent intrigue, it is both gritty and dreamy, political and personal.
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.
Hectic, lyrical, swooningly romantic and almost unwatchably brutal.
... 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.
The art of it is entirely in the atmospherics; the rest is melodrama. Its 127 minute exercise in puzzle solving is draining.
The characters are less compelling than this particular slice of history, which has rarely been dramatized in movies.
Give in to the mood piece and bathe in its glamorous nostalgic glow. It's a beauty.
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.
Too often, Purple Butterfly is as impenetrable as Zhang's placid, obdurate beauty.
An often remarkable, often infuriating lateral spin on genre material that desperately needs another sesh at the editing table.
History is scant or purposefully blurred in Lou Ye's abstruse Purple Butterfly, a war drama with Wong-like delusions of love
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by: Southern Crane 1/29/04


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