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cmovie: Butterfly Sword
Nov. 29th, 2011 09:57 pmMichelle Yeoh is an assassin and spy who works for an eunich. Tony Leung and Donnie Yen play her juniors/flunkies. Donnie Yen has a long-time thing for Michelle Yeoh and is an alcoholic with a bad habit of spying on her in the bath. At one point, he draws a picture of her and then makes out with it before the ink dries. Somehow, he manages to not come across as a creepy stalker. Michelle Yeoh, though, only has eyes for Tony Leung, who only has eyes for Joey Wong, who is the daughter of a martial arts master but hates the martial arts world. Why this is isn't explained, so I just assumed that her father was one of those masters who gets all obsessive about honor and duty and rants about betrayal and disobedience all the time and tries to marry her off to random weird guys. Possibly, she forgot to put her shoes away one day and he kicked her out. Stranger things have happened in wuxia. (Look, if you don't give me an explanation for what seems to be an important but odd bit of characterization, I have to make it up.)
Jimmy Lin also shows up for about 5 minutes. Like Andy Lau, he looks like he's aged about 5 years in the last 20. Those two really need to share their secret. There's also fake deaths, exploding heads, long-lost-sisters-who-may-or-may-not-be-deep-cover-spies, and Michelle Yeoh mistaking Tony Leung for an arrow.
I actually saw this one years ago when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero were newly big with US audiences, so the packaging was all "Look! Michelle Yeoh x Donnie Yen!" I actually think I remember it having a few more scenes, including a different ending that I didn't like. As it is, the ending is very abrupt and feels like they cut it off midway through a scene. I remembered enjoying it but being annoyed with how Michelle Yeoh and Joey Wong's characters centered around Tony Leung, and how they would undermine each other to him and their interactions were basically pretending not to fight over him. My memories were pretty much correct. Fun, but needed more of the political/spies plot, and either less of the romantic plot or to do the romantic plot in a way where I'd care.
Jimmy Lin also shows up for about 5 minutes. Like Andy Lau, he looks like he's aged about 5 years in the last 20. Those two really need to share their secret. There's also fake deaths, exploding heads, long-lost-sisters-who-may-or-may-not-be-deep-cover-spies, and Michelle Yeoh mistaking Tony Leung for an arrow.
I actually saw this one years ago when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero were newly big with US audiences, so the packaging was all "Look! Michelle Yeoh x Donnie Yen!" I actually think I remember it having a few more scenes, including a different ending that I didn't like. As it is, the ending is very abrupt and feels like they cut it off midway through a scene. I remembered enjoying it but being annoyed with how Michelle Yeoh and Joey Wong's characters centered around Tony Leung, and how they would undermine each other to him and their interactions were basically pretending not to fight over him. My memories were pretty much correct. Fun, but needed more of the political/spies plot, and either less of the romantic plot or to do the romantic plot in a way where I'd care.