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 urple Butterfly" is a movie with the makings
of a great film, but is unfortunately marred by a couple of silly decisions
that should have been avoided. There is little doubt that Ye Lou ("Suzhou
River") is a talented filmmaker, but there is such a thing as
making a film more complicated than it needs to be, a concept Lou seems
unable, or unwilling, to accept. As such, the narrative structure of
"Purple Butterfly" progresses in a linear fashion until, out of
the blue, Lou pulls some questionable editing gimmicks, thereby polluting
the timeline unnecessarily. Why did he do it? I suppose only the director
can answer that, and he's keeping mum.
"Purple Butterfly"
stars Zhang Ziyi (most recently seen in Zhang Yimou's "The
House of Flying Daggers") as Cynthia (Xin Xia), a member of Purple
Butterfly, an underground resistance group fighting the growing Japanese
influence over China in 1930s Shanghai. Purple Butterfly is led by the
strong but quiet Xie Ming (Yuanzheng Feng), and the group has targeted the
highest ranking Japanese military official in the city, a man name Yamamoto,
for assassination. Alas, their plans implode when a case of mistaken
identity leads to a shootout at a train yard, with a young man name Szeto
(Ye Liu) stuck in the middle.
In order to stop Purple Butterfly's activities, the
Japanese transfer over Itami (Toru Nakamura), an intelligence officer, to
take over the Shanghai office. As it so happens, Itami and Cynthia once
had an affair when they were younger and in Manchuria, leading Xie Ming to
send Cynthia back into Itami's arms in an attempt to gain inside
information in order to complete their assassination of Yamamoto. But as
the star-crossed lovers circle one another, each hiding secrets and
putting their own agendas into action, it becomes increasingly difficult
to know who is playing whom.
Even though it runs almost two hours, one gets the
feeling that there was a lot more to "Purple Butterfly" that
never made it out of the editing room. Or, to be more specific, there was
a lot of dialogue that needed to be said, but was never written. As a
result, much of "Butterfly" features close-ups of actors faces
as they silently meditate on their situation. Working from his own
minimalist script, Lou showcases a wealth of camera tricks, many of them
dependent on the strength of the actors to pull off any given scene. In
that respect, he's chosen brilliantly.
Rightfully at the top of the marquee is Zhang Ziyi,
who does a fine job in what might be her most demanding role to date.
Without very much exposition to fill in the blanks, it's up to Ziyi and
her co-stars to tell us what we need to know through their eyes, through
their hesitant glances, their forlorn looks, or perhaps through their
non-actions. It's to Ziyi's credit that she manages to convey her
character's motivations, hopes, and fears without resorting to wild facial
expressions. A scene toward the end, when she realizes that all her
group's plans have come undone, is heartbreaking in its simplicity and
intensity. It is no wonder Ziyi is poised for international stardom. The
woman has chops.
Given the unfortunate task of working opposite Ziyi
is Japanese actor Toru Nakamura ("2009:
Lost Memories"), a well-traveled veteran of foreign film
productions. Here, Nakamura looks as if he'd rather be somewhere else, and
as a result comes across as little more than a sounding board for Ziyi's
tour de force performance rather than the interactive participant the
movie requires him to be. It's not that Nakamura is a terrible actor; it's
just that he's not terribly good. Stilted, wooden, and dull, Nakamura's
Itami is unreadable, not because the actor is good at hiding his
character's motivations, but because, one suspects, Nakamura just doesn't
have the skills to pull off a subtle performance, and instead has fallen
back on a look of permanent disinterest instead.
More successful is the rest of the cast, including
Yuanzheng Feng as the somber resistance leader, who has a history with
Cynthia that he can't shake, and doesn't want to. Also compelling is Ye
Liu, who is soon to be seen in the Hollywood production "Dark
Matter", as well as another co-starring role with Zhang Ziyi in the
upcoming "Jasmine". As Szeto, Liu is a young man whose happy
world is crushed in a wild burst of gunfire and death at the train yard, a
violent encounter not of his making that also takes away the love of his
life.
It's in the shootout at the train yard that best
describes the action in "Purple Butterfly": chaotic, sudden, and
pointless. The film itself is a dreary experience, with 1930s Shanghai
seemingly see-sawing between only two possible weather patterns --
drenching rain or overwhelming mist. Prostitutes fill the sidewalks and
student protestors fill the streets, while the rest of the citizenry try
to get by as best they can, hoping not to get caught up in the chaos. One
of Lou's more effective conceits is the invisibility of the Japanese
agents, who always seems to be everywhere except in the movie's frame.
"Purple Butterfly" is an intriguing film,
with subtle, mesmerizing performances by Zhang Ziyi and Yaunzheng Feng.
Unfortunately there are missteps, such as an unnecessarily tainted
timeline and a running time that screams padding. Still, there's a lot
here for the ambitious viewer to dig through, from the film's handling of
its Sino-Japanese conflict as embodied by Purple Butterfly and Itami's
organization, to the unexpected insertion of the innocent Szeto, who has
no dog in the fight, but is nevertheless forced at gunpoint into the
equation. Szeto is the civilian, the people, caught between two warring
factions, wanting no part of either, but not given a choice in the matter.
When all is said and done, one does wish "Purple
Butterfly" had been a little more selective in what it kept and what
it left on the cutting room floor. There are rumors that the film is
missing a 2-minute love scene between the Chinese Cynthia and the Japanese
Itami -- a "sleeping with the enemy" sequence, if you will. This
would certainly explain why Cynthia's reunion with Itami cuts abruptly to
what appears to be a post-coital scene, with the atmosphere of the scene
one of either intense sex or perhaps rape. It's rumored that the Chinese
Government, who censors and approves all Chinese movies before allowing
their release, required this edit. This Government intrusion may also
explain the film's epilogue, which shows black and white newsreels of
Japanese atrocities during World War II, thereby sliding "Purple
Butterfly" dangerously close to the land of Chinese nationalistic
propaganda.
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