mariafefauk Although the plot is centered on the story of a married female teacher who struggles to come to terms with her sexuality, I believe the message of butterfly goes beyond this description. All the main characters in one way or another portray how we as individuals come to terms or deny or most inner self. I found particularly interesting the parallel between the person as an individual and the person as a social subject, and how the interaction between the two can be a conflictive one, specially if the traits that mark the self are not socially accepted or naturalized. In all, a beautiful moving film of contemporary struggle for self and social acceptance.

Samantha Pan Butterfly is a brave try in the contemporary Hong Kong film industry, which has been highly commercialised. In contrast to most of the HK films, which are targeted at the mass audience, this film is definitely catering to viewers with open minds and willing to accept new story-telling styles. The two interesting features of this film, to me, who grew up with Chinese (including HK & Taiwan) films, are: first, parallel story-telling and second, the integration of political messages into a homosexual love story. Let me go more in-depth into these. In this film, there are two main stories, both happened on Ah-Die (acted by Josie Ho), but at two time segments: she at 30 something, married with a daughter; and she during her teens, in love with her schoolmate. The editing skill enhances the stories a lot, by segmenting each story and mixing them together so that the two stories are developing in a parallel manner. Only towards the ending, the audiences know that how the teen lesbian couple parted 15 years ago; and how, in the present world, the triangle relationship between Ah-Die, Yip (acted by Yuan Tian) and Ah-Die's husband was resolved. It is not easy not to confuse the audiences when telling two stories in this way, but the director had done a good job. Excellent! The second interesting feature of this film is that it was able to blend two sensitive issues (at least sensitive in the Chinese world)in one film: politics and homosexuality. In the story of teen Ah-Die 15 years ago, her girlfriend was actively involved in political activities. Though it was not said directly by the main actors, the film had sent the pro-democratic messages by touching on the Tiananmen incidence took place in 1989 in Beijing. A girl said to the public: 'I am not really interested in politics, but I can't deny that we all live in it...'; an old woman also said during a protest that 'we are all humans and we all need freedom and basic rights...'. Though these all happened about 15 years ago, as described in the film, the political messages of freedom and human rights are still valid in contemporary China. Or I dare say the director MEANS to say something about current political status in China. Therefore Butterfly (Wu Die) may not be the greatest art film in 2004 in China, nonetheless, it is the most daring one, which deserves the dedication of audiences' time to appreciate it.

l-chan "butterfly" (wu die) didn't disappoint me even though it's a low budget movie directed by a new indie director what i love most about the movie is that it didn't question the 2 character's sexual orientation in any way, making lesbianism as something normal (instead of "abnormal" as many other Asian films have portrayed it to be) but then i think this movie would be better if it's shorter (it's 2 hours long) and if the characters weren't clothed during some love scenes (cause it appears artificial to me), and the kissing scenes by the 2 young actresses weren't quite convincing i also agreed that the 2 lesbian students subplot were detracting from the main plot..it just annoys me really overall, i think the best thing about this movie is that it got a positive ending that signifies the slow but positive gay movement in Asia and in Hong Kong (where this movie was shot)

gaik_1518 I think this is a nice movie...A great one...This is the first homosexual HongKong movie I watched... A harmony homosexual movie, there isn't any visible nudity involved... The scenes will be mainly kissing scenes of actresses... I think that their kissing were great, when they were kissing, they don't give me the feeling that they were acting, I think that there is nothing to be criticized, without knowing the real characters of the 2 actresses, I would definitely think that they are the real couple in life...After I watch this movie, Tian Yuan really deserves the New Actress Award, she is a great actress in this movie... Passion, is what I can conclude from this movie. I would definitely recommend it to my friends...