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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Purple Butterfly

EMAILPRINTPalm Pictures

Purple Butterfly reviews
68
7.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 12 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Ye Lou

Directed by: Ye Lou

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 26, 2004
DVD: February 15, 2005

Running Time: 127 minutes, Color

Origin: China / France

Summary

RATING: R for strong violence and a scene of sexuality

Starring Ziyi Zhang, Ye Liu, Yuanzheng Feng, Tôru Nakamura, Bingbing Li, and Kin Ei

An epic tale of doomed passion, mistaken identity and the terrible personal cost of political resistance. (Palm Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

A gorgeously shot, ambitious epic.

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90

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

As atmospheric and moody as a film noir, the stylish, sometimes perplexing Purple Butterfly is a remarkable period piece, evoking the bustling, dense and increasingly dangerous Shanghai of the '30s

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80

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Hectic, lyrical, swooningly romantic and almost unwatchably brutal, Purple Butterfly deploys a modern Asian gangster-movie aesthetic to tell a love story of Shakespearean dimensions.

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80

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Mr. Lou synthesizes a wide range of styles and influences - from "Casablanca" to Wong Kar-wai - resulting in a movie that, for all its haunting strangeness, seems curiously familiar.

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80

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

A sumptuously moody memory play.

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80

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Dark and challenging.

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75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Director Lou Ye, who gave us the lilting "Suzhou River," doesn't care much for dialogue. He lets Wang Yu's pulsating camerawork do the talking.

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58

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Too often, Purple Butterfly is as impenetrable as Zhang's placid, obdurate beauty.

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58

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Rich with emotional turmoil and searing beauty, but it could have used a little more time in the editing room to make sense of it all.

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50

Variety Derek Elley

An often remarkable, often infuriating lateral spin on genre material that desperately needs another sesh at the editing table.

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50

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The effect is hypnotically disorienting, but the less familiar you are with this period in 20th-century Chinese history, the easier it is to get hopelessly lost in the tangle of personal and political loyalties and betrayals.

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38

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Ye bites off substantially more than he can chew.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Peter Alan R. gave it a10:
An excitingly different, beautiful and subtle approach to making a film, which will probably alienate many of its viewers. A major step into new and unkown-to-me territory, I was immediately seduced and viscerally delighted. I was smiling in the dark.

Brian P gave it a9:
Dude below has no idea what the movie was about, thus his childlike response. Either that, or the issues latent in the historical and easily transferrable political subtext of the film are too painful for him to confront. TV Guide, Variety, and Seattle PI don't get it either. Their difficulty is with the twists in the plot. They fail to understand this twists because they are ignorant of the subtext that drives the film. The world is missing little by not having them and the first poster understand the film. Indeed, maybe the directors expect that, given the ending.

Chad S. gave it a1:
Boring and poorly acted.

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