A sweet and sorrow legend of love in ancient China. But this version I think was not the best Butterfly Lovers.

The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend about the tragic romance between two lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, or Liang Zhu, from whom the name of the legend is known in Chinese. The story is set in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.Zhu Yingtai is an intelligent but lazy girl who is born into a wealthy family. She was to be married off to the son of the Prime Minister, but her parents found that she was unable to recite poetry or play the guzheng (a minimum requirement for girls born of nobility). Her mother thus sent her to a college disguised as a boy.Now when Yingtai is enrolled in the college, she is given certain special privileges by the principal's wife who knew her mother (her mother studied there). This was because, Yingtai had sworn 3 oaths before entering the college (see the film for those).Yingtai met Liang ShanBo, an industrious but poor man who was studying to sit for the national exam. (In those days, to become an official, you had to sit for a national exam, these were based on poetry, the teachings of Confuscious, etc). They developed a strong bond (which causes Shan Bo to feel that he might be homosexual) with each other, and Liang ShanBo did not realise that YingTai was a girl, till the fateful meeting with his ex-classmate who had become a monk.It turns his ex-classmate was Yingtai's mother's former lover, and she gave him up so that she could marry a rich and powerful official.Yingtai's father called her back after 6 months so that they could arrange the wedding with the son of the Prime Minister, but before she sets off, she asks his classmate, Ting Mong Chun to pass a message to Shan Bo that she had to leave. They met again, and in the Goddess of Mercy cave, she chose to be his better half.The story ends in tragedy, because both lovers could not be together in life, but in death they were side by side.The chemistry between Nicky Wu and Charlie Young is almost flawless. The comic elements in the show help to ease the sad endings, but when it comes to the end, grab your Kleenex tissues.

A beautifully done film of the Butterfly Lovers, a traditional Chinese love story. The first half is done as a romantic comedy, wherein a rich girl is sent to college dressed as a boy, and meets another student who can't understand his strong attraction to the new kid. Since the film is set roughly 2000 years ago, the contemporary style of music and dialogue is a bit jarring at points. I sometimes felt like the filmmaker was influenced by the 80's romance "About Last Night..."The film takes a darker turn when the girl's parents have her return home to complete the marriage they have already arranged. Throughout the film there are references to their pursuit of status -- what the mother gave up, what is expected from the daughter, the father's use of cosmetics for "rosy cheeks" and how that turns out to be less lucky than he expected. It's a hint that not everyone is going to get what they hope for.Sprinkled throughout is wonderful imagery: A simple wedding gift covered in the dust raised by the retainers for a competing wedding party. A student holding a broken zither overhead as the day turns to night. A monk relaxing on the shore of a koi pond, asking that the fish be set free.The VHS tape, however, might easily drive you mad. The good news is that it's letterboxed so that you won't miss any of the gorgeous cinematography. Despite this, the subtitles are shown on the film area -- even though there's plenty of room below -- and the white lettering used seems to disappear into the background about 25% of the time. And if you can read the subtitles -- well, the translation has its weaker points. For example, one of the schoolmasters plays a variant of Go while his students are taking their test. The subtitles translate the game as "chess."There are other artistic nitpicks I might make, such as the pointless "soccer" game that one of the teachers invents, or the complete inability of the girl to look anything like a boy. Overall, though, it's a wonderful film that is well worth seeing for the story, the performances, and the lessons to be learned.

Tsui Hark, the master of action movie, gave us this incredibly beautiful love story.The direction is superb, the actors are great and you will find this strange but hypnotic sense of fantasy and poetry that you always find in the Chinese tales. If you don't cry at the end your heart is made of stone ! A unique masterpiece, a lot more better than Romeo + Juliet (a good movie, too!)