hyped garbage

best movie i've ever seen.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The movie is set in 1930s China where the Japanese occupied China. It is a complex love story disguised as a spy thriller. I suspect the whole staging of the era and its circumstances is simply to illustrate an idea. "The idea that a new lover demands one to "kill" her old lover."What more convenient way to illustrate this than actually killing someone. But the act is merely symbolic. If the movie was set in modern times without the apparatus of physical murder, then it would take a long long time to illustrate the killing/erasing of an old love. In the movie, the main character played by Zhang Ziyi, realizes only after she has killed her old lover, she had made a grave mistake and she regrets. Only then, she realizes she loves him the most.Another interesting idea it illustrated is that -the mind and body does mysterious things. The main character betrays her true love by a cause she does not really believe. She follows the orders of a man who she doesn't really love. Strangers we are even to ourselves.

Purple Butterfly began in silence, a risky one at that. It relied on the gestures of the actors/actresses, the jumpcuts, and the hand-held camera-work, reminiscent of early Italian Neo-Realism and/or Cassevettes, to begin the story. I have to admit that I dozed off somewhere within the first 30 min., but that was mainly due to my lack of sleep. Nevertheless, I was anxious for the ending of the film.I enjoyed the cinematography, the acting style, the editing, the music, and the mixing of genres. It's like an epic espionage war love story, the likes of a collaboration between Hitchcock and Truffuat. There was some poetic scenes, and suspenseful ones as well. The main problem I had was the narrative structure which seemed confusing to me. It also didn't flow well together. Somewhere during the middle of the film, it becomes non-linear without warning me.In conclusion, I give the movie a B-. It is definitely worth seeing and may will be a very historic film in regards to its film language in years to come.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie after reading a positive review in the New York Times. In addition, I'm also Shanghainese so there was more than just a passing interest in the subject matter. However, after watching it, I was extremely disappointed.The movie's pace was excruciatingly slow and monotonous. The director lingered on certain scenes for much too long. There was no passion or chemistry between the lovers. There was barely any dialogue. Dialogue was sorely needed to compensate for the lack of acting. At the end of the movie, you didn't feel any compassion for the characters. This movie was lacking in everything. The script was weak, the acting was poor, and the editing was non-existent. The director tried to emulate certain noir film styles but failed miserably. A good movie is one in which captures your attention, maintains it and is successful in concluding without you feeling time has passed by. This movie felt as though it would never end. Don't waste your money on this movie.

Ye Lou's film Purple Butterfly pits a secret organization (Purple Butterfly) against the Japanese forces in war torn Shanghai. Ding Hui (Zhang Ziyi) and her ex-lover Hidehiko Itami (Toru Nakamura) find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict after a chance meeting.I agree with the reviewer from Paris. The film substitutes a convoluted, semi-historical conflict for a plot, without giving the audience a single reason to care about the characters or their causes. The sudden time shifting doesn't help matters as it appears completely unwarranted and pointless. Normally I don't mind dark movies, but the absence of light, the bone-jarringly shaky camera footage, and the generally bad film-making techniques really make this a tough film to watch and stay interested in. I also agree with the viewer from Georgia that this film "has a chaotic editing style and claustrophobic cinematography", but I don't think that helps the movie. The backdrop to the film is one of the most potent events of the 20th Century, and I don't believe you can do it any justice by editing it as if it were a Michael Bay film. The overly melodramatic moments don't add to its watchability.The actors are all suitably melancholy. Zhang Ziyi once again shows that she has an exceptionally limited acting range as she spends the entire movie doing what she seems to do best in all her films, brooding and looking generally annoyed. However, at least she adds some variety to this role by chainsmoking and engaging in the worst love-making scene since Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton in The Terminator.All in all, a very disappointing film, especially seeing as how it comes from the director of Suzhou He. 2/10