Matrixiole
Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
Glimmerubro
It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.
Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Mr_Pink05
this film is truly incredible, please people, comment on it. I think it is one of the best martial arts films I have ever seen. However, it is very cult and i could not imagine most mainstream audiences enjoying this film. If you are not a philistine, then you will probably appreciate the very high quality of this film. i would give this film 10/10 because it is not only an excellent kung fu movie, but the cinematography is also jaw droppingly good. I must warn people that the Michelle Yeoh death scene is cut off in most DVD copies of this film, so it goes from her standing there, to butterfly and sword sitting in the back of a cart weeping... how bizarre.Kick ass film though!
brainfertilizer
I found this movie slightly disappointing.It seems there are several different strains of HK Action Flicks. Jackie Chan does pure fist/leg martial arts with no wires. Jet Li tends to use more wires, but "Once Upon a Time in China" seemed to be more dependent on the action than the wires. This move depends so much on wires and magic powers that you really don't get very much in the way of good swordplay and kung-fu. It seemed pretty cheesy from the beginning, and I left it on only because I had nothing better to do. Then it started getting good. The plot gets pretty complicated, as you see hidden motivations and conflicting desires causing problems for the characters. Unfortunately, the movie never really capitalizes on some of the things the characters discover, and the ending reveals a mystery they really hadn't set up well, forcing the characters to reveal too much in their dialogue, as in, "You see, this was my plan all along! Now I shall kill you!" Not dull, exactly, but it never fulfills the potential of the plot developments to overcome a cheesy approach to martial arts.
Dan Starkey
Emphatically not for kids, "Butterfly and Sword" is a strange amalgam of brutal and unusually bloody kung-fu, and a complex love triangle... make that parallelogram. Michelle Yeoh, Tony Leung, and Donnie Yen are at their best, and Joey Wong is, as always, nice to look at. This film is infamous for the abruptly truncated ending in the version that was distributed in Hong Kong and on HK DVDs. For the original, which includes the end of the film that is apparently too shocking for HK audiences, look for the Taiwanese version, called "Comet Butterfly Sword."
drngor
This is a movie that is a visual feast. The wire work is mesmerizing, the swordplay is intricate, and the photography is grand. However, other than that I was quite disappointed with this film.The plot of the film is quite complex. It tells the story of some assassins who are trying to kill the leaders of Soul Heights(?) because they wish to destroy Happy Woods and be the leaders of the martial world. Also included is a web of love, a fake death, betrayal, and a whole lot of fighting.The relationship between the characters is quite complex. Tony Leung and Joey Wang are lovers. However, Tony is loved by Michelle Yeoh who is in turn loved by Donnie Yen. The problem that exists with the characters is that I really didn't have any sympathy for them, except Donnie Yen. The characters are fairly well-defined but they seemed emotionally distant.The battle scenes are done quite well. The movie has some good wire action choreographed by Ching Siu-Tung. Unfortunately, these scenes don't really show what Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen are capable of doing. That's a shame, because they are very talented. Nonetheless, the action scenes with Donnie Yen are quite good...especially him and Michelle in the forest.One of the main drawbacks of this movie is the excess of gore. This film is very bloody and has many scenes of decapitation, torso splitting, and blood spurting in geysers.In the end, this is a fair movie. Donnie Yen is probably the best thing about this film. He shines more than the two leads. Also, this movie has an arresting visual style. Other those two things, there isn't much going for this film.
