I thought the movie would bring me reminiscences of Tsui Hark’s Butterfly Lovers (aka Leung Juk, 1994) but it didn’t – it brought memories of a ’90’s B-grade TV series instead. With the overdone CG effects, exaggerated facial expressions of Zhu (Charlene) and prolonged romance, the movie is like one of the TVB productions that will get mums crying but boys kicking their seats.

The story is indeed a touching one, and, following the plot of the original tale, the director cleverly sets the story on the reincarnation of the two butterflies, Liang and Zhu. This has given him enough freedom to add elements of fighting to the story while still retaining the main theme of unfulfilled love. The legend of Liang and Zhu (or Leung and Juk in Cantonese) is about the attraction between two male students, Liang and Zhu, attending the same school. Upon discovering Zhu is actually a girl, Liang happily decides to marry her. But Zhu’s family disapproves of their alliance, forcing Zhu to marry a spoiled rich man named Ma. Finally Liang dies in despair, Zhu joining him not long afterwards and both turn into butterflies. To me, the attraction of this Chinese Romeo and Juliet story is the comedy of the first half and the bitter romance of the second. In this version by Jingle Ma, however, this is lost. The movie fails to play on the comedic effect of Zhu as an invisible female but hurriedly introduces the romance between the two. What should be the funniest part of the story is reduced to a love story – while Zhu is supposed to be a cute young boy in the beginning, the film makes 'him' suddenly appear as a girl in Liang’s dreams – the secret is revealed too early and makes the whole thing feel awkward. This should just be a story between two humans, not particularly the story of Zhu and Liang – the couple only have to love each other without angst, never mind that they are of the same gender.

Desperation in the original story becomes anger in this version and the bitter romance of the ending turns into a fight which overwhelms the sadness. While many may appreciate this twist as more contemporary, I personally prefer maintaining the tragedy of the situation – and actually heard laughter when Liang knocked down his friends as they tried to prevent him from getting to Zhu’s corpse. It was, I’m sure, an unintended comedic effect.
If you are after romance or action, perhaps Butterfly Lovers will be your cup of tea. But it certainly disappoints a fan of the original legend.

Cindy Lam