Butterfly Lovers (2008, China)

This is a martial arts variation of a classic Chinese tragic love story that is attributed to being set in the Jin Dynasty (265 CE-420 CE). It is sometimes compared to "Romeo and Juliet", and this movie goes even farther in adding elements from Romeo and Juliet that are not in the original Chinese storyline.

It is a story of a young woman who wants to see more of the world and convinces her father to let her disguise herself as a male and study at a renowned martial arts center. She ends up falling in love with the head student, but then gets recalled by her father to marry someone else, before which the head student learns of her identity, and finds he returns the feeling.

The latter part of the film varies a lot from the original, and with the added Romeo and Juliet plot devices, I think it's an improvement, keeping in mind that it was most likely blatantly ripped off from Romeo and Juliet.

It's an uneven film. The first part is light and annoying, and borders on screwball with the female character totally unconvincing as a male. In Chinese film, there's a tradition of women merely dressing as men and therefore being seen as male, and that's fine ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is a well-known reference that quickly comes to mind), but in this film, she totally acts like a girl; there's not a single attribute that would convince anyone this was a male. Not even a likeable female, she's whiny and flirty (and if male, aggressively gay).

The second part of the film becomes all melodramatic and tragic, with some plot points being hazy and poorly executed. However, the actual ending, along with the story of legend and the fated lovers aspect help redeem the film.

Not quite making it a good film, I give this a nominal fresh 6 out of 10 tomatoes rating.