The Banquet
By Bob Strauss
U Film Reviews, January 14, 2005
Chinese Director Lou Ye builds on the promise of his award-winning "Sozhou River' with "Purple Butterfly.' A gorgeous period melodrama, packed with romantic tragedy and violent intrigue, it is both gritty and dreamy, political and personal.
Set mostly in Shanghai during the extended Japanese takeover of the city in the 1930s, "Butterfly' boasts yet another stirring performance from "Crouching Tiger' and "House of Flying Daggers' beauty Ziyi Zhang. In this one, she goes from love-struck schoolgirl to cold-blooded femme fatale to a woman whose conflicting feelings leave her an exquisitely devastated wreck. The young actress weaves all of these personae into a persuasive, if unlikely, whole, without so much as a single flying drop-kick to fall back on.
In a prologue, we observe Zhang's Cynthia's love for a soulful Japanese worker, Itami (Toru Nakamura), in 1920s Manchuria. He is called home for military service, and as if that isn't embittering enough, Cynthia soon after witnesses her Chinese nationalist brother's murder at the hands of Japanese extremists.
Some years later, she has relocated to Shanghai, changed her name to Ding Hui and joined the violent anti-Japanese underground organization Purple Butterfly. They're out to kill as many of the invader's operatives as they can, and when Itami, now an officer in his nation's secret service, arrives in the turbulent city, well, you can imagine how complicated the lovers' reunion becomes. Things get even more messy when an innocent Chinese businessman, Szeto (Liu Ye), is mistaken by both sides for a Purple Butterfly assassin, and traumatized beyond tolerance into perhaps the most dangerous loose cannon of them all.
Director Lou combines fascinating historical detail with shattering personal drama and spasms of jarring, violent action. Much of the film is dialogue-free, and presented with a smudgy, widescreen artfulness that marries realism with high style. Lou makes particularly evocative use of rain and train imagery, and period Chinese swing music both enhances and counterpoints the film's sense of fatalism.
Toward the end, though, the narrative gets a bit lost as Lou delves into the characters' memories, and by the time survivors go into their third or fourth act of stricken anxiety, you may be longing for a little restraint. But "Purple Butterfly's' strengths far outweigh its indulgences. It's Chinese noir with brains, beauty and heart to spare.