VividSimon Simply Perfect

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Steineded How sad is this?

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Giovanni Fazio Many have commented on how confusing the film's plot is, and I agreed on first viewing. A second viewing, however, shows everything quite intricately and deftly and =coherently= composed. People are used to films telling them things with words, which a visual medium doesn't necessarily have to do. The images give you everything here, provided you're paying attention, which shouldn't be too much for a director to ask. The first 20 minutes play out almost like a silent movie, as Lou uses the most delicately suggestive fragments to introduce us to the star-crossed lovers Itami (Toru Nakamura) and Cynthia (Zhang Ziyi). Zhang, in my opinion, deserves every close-up she gets.

mpower1112 I couldn't disagree with your previous reviewer more. Purple Butterfly is a piece of majestic film-making, the first thriller I can remember since the days of Orson Welles with emotional depth and a real sense of history. The direction and cinematography are superb. Look at the railroad station sequence and the camera movement in what seems like the longest take since Antonioni's The Passenger. It is a virtuoso moment in the film. Admittedly Western audience will find the long silences and long contemplations of the actor's faces unusual, if not unsettling, but they contribute mightily to the mood and enable the actors to communicate without words. Also, it's not easy for a Westerner to distinguish between Chinese actors (sorry, but to this Westerner they did tend to look somewhat alike). Adding to the confusion is the mixture of flashbacks and forward-backs a la Tarantino. But all this just made me want to see the film a second time now that I have an inkling of what it is about. I intend to do exactly that tonight and then I'll try to find the DVD. ( I have only seen this film on cable). Also, be warned it is a very sad film. But thank God it doesn't have the usual tacked on American style optimistic ending. ( See True Romance, speaking of Tarantino.)

noralee "Purple Butterfly (Zi hudie)" is a Chinese take on "Charlotte Gray."There are also references to "The Third Man" in how the characters' loyalties and knowledge of each other's motives switch, to "Shanghai Express" for the trains, locales and extensive close-ups of beautiful faces, and to "Casablanca" as if these characters had more dialogue they would probably say something about their personal lives not amounting to a hill of beans amidst war breaking out in the late 1930's. Elaborate period production design and lush cinematography with very slow camera movement substitute for dialogue. I know very little of Sino-Japanese relations at this period so I probably missed important portents as the film first follows what I thought were two sets of star-crossed lovers in Manchuria and then Shanghai, whose lives only gradually obviously intersect. I consequently found some plot points confusing, particularly as I wasn't sure if the characters were spectacularly bad shots at point blank range or if we were seeing flashbacks to the point that I wondered if the projectionist had mixed up reels. I also wasn't sure if I was supposed to have a positive reaction to Tôru Nakamura's character, as the movie is so virulently anti-Japanese, but I found him a very charismatic actor who had terrific chemistry with the very expressive Ziyi Zhang despite the formalized set pieces of their interactions and even though I wasn't really sure about her personal feelings within her Mata Hari activities. It was completely gratuitous to close the movie with newsreel footage of Japanese atrocities in various Chinese cities during the war. Yes, we know this war was hell on civilians but hey I'm watching for the romances.

kurtz-1 Over the last few years, I have seen a great many Chinese films, as well as many other Asian films (Korean films are my personal favorites) and have generally been more than pleased with all aspects of the films. Having recently seen Hero, a revival of Days of Being Wild @ the Film Forum in NYC and Goodbye Dragon Inn I was looking forward to seeing Purple Buttefly. They are usually all well acted, directed and offer interesting and compellign stories. I was also interested in seeing Purple Buttefly since I recently returned from a trip to China that included a visit to Shanghai.Now, the reality: I found this film to be a complete muddle -- highly confusing and very difficult to follow. (wish I had read the other two reviews before I went off to see this film.) I found myself ready to get up and leave several times.... there are these long pauses where nothing takes place ...(more time is spent lighting cigarettes than anything else in the film) and people are forever pulling huge pistols out of drawers....and the violence is almost made ludicrous with all the "ketchup" used to signify bloody encounters... OK, enough said.....