It's been a while since I actually wrote about an asian drama, so here goes! One of China's most famous legends is that of the "butterfly lovers". A young lady, with an unusual scholarly bent and, even more surprisingly, parent permission, dresses up as a man in order to go to boarding school. Zhu Yingtai is a pretty rich lady, so being able to do this in those times is pretty amazing. While there, she becomes best friends with her roommate, Liang Shanbo, who is one of those scholar type folk who only lives for learning and knowledge. You know, the kind without street-smarts. And in this case, the kind without cash. But he has She falls in love with him, and tries to subtly reveal her identity to him, but he's pretty dense, and doesn't get it. Meanwhile, her parents set up a marriage to a man of their caste - Ma Wencai - and pull her out of school to become a proper housewife. As she leaves, Shanbo finally figures out that his roomie is a girl, and that he is madly in love with her, and decides to follow her home.
Yingtai arrives home, but locks herself in her room rather than marry Wencai. Shanbo ends up dying at Yingtai's hometown (I can't remember how). The girl is devastated, and agrees to marry Wencai - on the condition that she gets to visit her lover's grave on the way to the temple. Her parents agree, and the procession starts. At the gravesite, however, something astonishing happens - Yingtai is swallowed up by the earth, and is never seen again. Two butterflies fly away together...
The star-crossed lovers story is really popular, and there's been a gazillion adaptations of the story. I was really excited about this one, because it stars some well-known Chinese/Taiwanese actors/actresses. Yingtai is played by Charlene Choi (Ah Sa) of the HK band Twins, Wencai is played by the handsome Huge, and best of all, Shanbo is played by Wu Chun of Fahrenheit - one of my favourite bands! AND the adaptation is a wuxia (martial arts) one. Can you say awesome?
But, unfortunately, the movie didn't live up to its hype. Ah Sa was a terrible boy - her scenes as a girl weren't too bad, but her boy scenes were so unrealistic - her voice was pitched too high, her mannerisms were very girly...the only guy-ish thing about her was her clothes. She even drew butterflies on things - if that's not girly, I don't know what else is. Huge and Wu Chun were much better as Wencai and Shanbo respectively - especially Huge, who ended up playing Wencai with the right amount of creepy insanity and fidelity (I know it sounds weird, but it makes sense when you watch it). That could have saved the movie, except that there was no character development. That combined with the Cantonese film technique of abruptly cutting away a scene into the next one, just made the movie very jerky and uninspired. I just didn't feel connected to the actors at all! Two things that were good in the film were the stunt sequences and the filmatography...but unfortunately that wasn't enough to save it.
