This kung fu film from 1993 is another wuxia film packed with wire fu and gravity defying action.
The move is based around a group of assassins known as Happy Forest. The leader of Happy Forest is Lady Ko, played by Michelle Yeoh. Ko’s brothers and sisters are ‘sworn’ siblings and are of no blood relation to each other, but all grew up on the streets.
One of the men, Meng Sing Wan (Tony Leung), is in a relationship with a girl named Butterfly. Sing keeps his identity as an assassin secret from Butterfly, as her father was a “man from the world of martial arts” and died when she was young. Meanwhile, Ko has feelings for Sing but naturally Sing isn’t interested, seeing Ko as an ‘older sister’ more than anything. Along with that Yip Cheung has one sided feelings toward Ko, so things are a little messy in the love department of the Happy Forest.
We’re told the story of a group of people who are all very close, each in this circle (since it’s bigger than a triangle) of one sided feelings of love toward another – except for Butterfly and Sing. This all sounds relatively complicated and seems to serve as a way of making the characters more interesting. It kind of works, but it doesn’t really develop the characters much. Instead the plot still focuses more on the very two dimensional story of the mission at hand.
What’s the mission?Ko is handed it by Grand Eunuch Tsao for a considerable payment. She must steal a letter from a rival martial arts group known as the Elites Villa Sect. They formulate a plan and go at it, in typical action movie style. As things unfold the relationships experience a bit of tension and the story continues on from there (I won’t give away too much).
It all seems a bit mixed up but it holds together and creates a relatively entertaining movie, but definitely not a list topper. Despite having a top class cast of actors (especially Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen), it just doesn’t carry the same charm as you see in their other movies. This makes movie a little disappointing
The action isn’t too bad though, and is very reminiscent of other wuxia films made in the early 90’s. You’ve got the gravity defying wirework, incredible speed and over the top precision that makes this movie similar to others made at the time. The abilities of the characters is over the top – for example, people aren’t just cut in half, their body parts fly off in different directions once cut! There’s even the odd occasion where a fighter flies through the body of another fighter, blade first and they crumble into bits a few seconds afterwards! This sword work involves a hell of a lot unnecessary spinning and movement and is a little too visually over the top for my taste.
As an action film it’s definitely not realistic and is based more in fantasy, as a way of demonstrating ‘other-worldy’ skill in the martial arts of the main characters.
It’s not bad but also not really my style (personally). If I had to sum it up I’d say it’s a pretty standard kung fu flick from the 90’s, with average action and story. So if you want to see something groundbreaking this movie won’t satisfy you, but it is still entertaining and worth a watch if you’re ready to kill some time. As always I always find the early work of such top names interesting to watch – so give it a go if you’re keen!
On DVD –
Region Free (All Countries)
Butterfly Sword (Special Edition)
Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
Butterfly and Sword [DVD]
