Most non-Chinese people know Zhang Ziyi from her appearances in the martial-arts movies “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hero”, and “House of Flying Daggers”. However, Zhang Ziyi is not just an action star. In fact, she doesn’t know any martial arts; she relies on her training as a ballet dancer in order to perform martial-arts choreography. Zhang Ziyi has also appeared in serious dramatic pieces such as “The Road Home” and “Purple Butterfly”. Although she appeared in “Rush Hour 2”, Zhang’s first lead role in an English-language production was in “Memoirs of a Geisha”.

Director Lou Ye received widespread praise for “Suzhou River”, so “Purple Butterfly” was accepted as a Cannes entry. However, “Purple Butterfly” was widely despised, so its chances of getting a decent theatrical release in the U.S. were slim. In fact, even though I wanted to see it, I wasn’t even aware that the DVD had been released until I saw it on a shelf at my local Blockbuster video store. (“Purple Butterfly” is a direct translation of the movie’s Chinese title, “Zi Hudie”.)

Yes, I admit that I wanted to see “Purple Butterfly” because of Zhang Ziyi and not because of the director or what I knew of the story. However, Zhang doesn’t look like she does in her martial-arts efforts. Since martial-arts movies are fantasies, heroines always look very pretty, even after they’ve been in fights. In “Purple Butterfly”, Zhang doesn’t seem to wear any make-up, and her completely de-glamorized appearance will be a shock to viewers expecting another camera-in-love-with-the-actress’s-face fest.

The movie begins in Manchuria during the 1920s. The Chinese Ding Hui (Zhang Ziyi) dates the Japanese Itami (Toru Nakamura). During this period, the Japanese occupied much of northern China. Ding Hui’s brother doesn’t really object to her dating a Japanese man, but after a Japanese fanatic kills her brother, Ding Hui heads to Shanghai to join an anti-Japanese faction. The title refers to a purple butterfly pin on a suit jacket. A lot of reviewers call Ding Hui’s anti-Japanese group as the Purple Butterfly faction, though I don’t recall the anti-Japanese activists referring to themselves with that term.

Ding Hui and Itami run into each other in Shanghai after he is dispatched there as a spy. They use each other to achieve their objectives, though Itami hopes that Ding Hui will go to Japan with him. However, Ding Hui no longer loves Itami. The movie ends with a montage of newsreel footage that shows what the Japanese did in Shanghai and in Nanjing during World War II.

The script introduces secondary characters that are affected by Ding Hui and Itami’s activities. Szeto (Liu Ye) and his girlfriend (Li Bingbing), a telephone switchboard operator, happen to be at a train station when anti-Japanese and Japanese operatives engage in a gunfight. Szeto’s girlfriend is killed in the crossfire, which causes Szeto much emotional anguish. Since the Japanese think that Szeto is an anti-Japanese activist, he gets tortured for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, too. The movie’s focus on Szeto and his girlfriend echoes Krzysztof Kieslowski’s obsession with coincidence in “The Double Life of Veronique” and the “Three Colors” trilogy. By the movie’s climax, however, Szeto decides to take matters into his own hands rather than letting others victimize him over and over again.

In post-production, the director crafted a movie that doubles back upon itself a few times. However, despite the non-linearity of some sequences, you actually know what happens to each character. What could confuse a viewer is trying to figure out the character’s motivations. A lot of people think that Ding Hui still loves Itami when they’re in Shanghai. I, on the other hand, think that Ding Hui hates Itami after her brother’s murder. In the geopolitical scheme of things, this is really the only acceptable conclusion.

On a technical level, the movie is assembled with much care and artistry. You’ll need to adjust to the jittery camerawork and rapid editing, though the visual style is a big part of what makes the movie so satisfying to watch. In fact, the cinematography is first-rate; the image compositions and generally moody atmosphere reminded most viewers of Wong Kar-wai. Since it’s fashionable to praise Wong Kar-wai, comparisons between “Purple Butterfly” and “In the Mood for Love” tend to paint Lou Ye’s movie as inferior. Really, though, “Purple Butterfly” is as good as most of Wong’s movies.

The use of slow-motion cinematography coupled with mournful music has become a standard fixture in contemporary Chinese-language cinema. (See Tony Leung at the end of “Infernal Affairs”.) “Purple Butterfly” has these moments, too. This sort of moviemaking is undeniably affecting, but one has to wonder if directors should be encouraged in this direction. After all, do we really want slo-mo death accompanied by mellifluous melodies to inspire creativity?

“Purple Butterfly” is not at all the confusing mess that so many reviewers have said it is. In fact, it has a rather simple story. That being said, the storytelling methods are fanciful and atmospheric. Oddly, the movie has a Romantic (as in the art movement and not love) view of the world even though the director ultimately wants to condemn Japan’s imperialist past. This makes the movie feel elegiac for two reasons, one of them unnecessary. The first--the necessary--reason is feeling sad about characters caught in the middle of others’ violence. The second--the unnecessary--reason is feeling sad that two people can’t love each other because they’re from opposite sides in a war. Still, Zhang Ziyi’s character got it right when she realized that fighting the Japanese was more important than her personal happiness.

Note: A love scene that runs about two minutes was cut from the movie before its general release around the world. Chinese censors did not want audiences to see a Chinese woman and a Japanese man together in an intimate scene.

David McCoy