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Butterfly Lovers |
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Don't squash the poor
harmless butterflies. |
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Director
: Jingle Ma Cast : Wu Chun, Charlene
Choi, Wu Ge, Ti Lung, Harlem Yu |
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Charlene Choi as Zhu Yan Zhi and Wu Chun as
Liang Zhong Shan |
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Ah, the Butterfly Lovers - China's
equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. We can't
get enough of silly young lovers who
defy their arranged marriages, it seems.
Throw in impossibly-pretty teen tools
Charlene Choi and Wu Chun, and the young
crowd will start running in faster than
you can say "Mos Burger butterfly
prawns". This isn't a straight
re-telling of the legend, so don't
expect anything as sophisticated as Tsui
Hark's version, The Lovers. Instead,
this is a slapstick comedy with moments
of romantic beauty and some pretty sweet
sword fights. Remember, director Jingle
Ma also worked on Fong Sai Yuk and Para
Para Sakura - which should give you some
clue about his tastes. Cheesy wushu,
anyone? |
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In Butterfly Lovers, Liang Zhong Shan
and Zhu Yan Zhi fall in love while
training in a mountain clan by day, and
going out boozing by night. Dressed as a
male so she can learn martial arts, Yan
Zhi is the most girly-looking man in the
history of men (maybe with the exception
of Toom from Beautiful Boxer). Liang is
at first unaware that Yan Zhi's not a
dude, thus continuing Wu Chun's penchant
for playing guys who fall for cross
dressers (see Hanazakari no Kimitachihe).
But he starts to hace his suspicions
when Yan Zhi tattoos his sword with
pretty butterflies, and starts giving
him "the look". Gulp! The rest is
history - the blissful couple come
together, but are torn apart when Yan
Zhi is betrothed to the evil General Ma.
Is there a happy ending in sight? We
think you know the answer... |
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Ashamed as we are to admit it, we are
suckers for stories about tragic
star-crossed lovers. We noticed that
Butterfly Lovers borrows a lot from its
Shakespearean equivalent. For one, it
makes use of the "draught of death", so
Yan Zhi can fake her death to escape
marriage - a plot detail that wasn't in
the original story. |
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Playing the herbal master is Harlem Yu,
undoubtedly the best actor of the bunch.
Stuffing himself with experimental drugs
and setting things on fire, his comic
relief is a much-needed antidote to all
the lovey-dovey mushiness, We love
seeing him on screen, giving Liang and
Yan Zhi a much-needed thwack on the head
when they develop googly eyes for each
other. We sometimes wish he'd stuff a
gourd in Choi's mouth, since her cutesy
voice grates on our ears. But what's to
be done - you can't silence young love. |
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Information, please buy a copy of FIRST @ myNEWS.com
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