Raise the Red Lantern by Zhang Yimou (1991) traces a young lady Songlian’s marriage into the wealthy Chen family, in which she realises the power struggles among the wives and she herself pitting against the domestic battles confined in the walls of the courtyard house, eventually losing her sanity after many turns of events.
The Butterfly Lovers (梁山泊与祝英台) is a well-known folklore in the Chinese history, along with The Legend of White Snake (白蛇传), Meng Jiangnu’s Bitter Weeping (孟姜女), Cowherd and Weaving Maid (牛郎织女), these four ancient love stories play an important part in Chinese literature.
I was a kid when I had my first exposure to The Butterfly Lovers. Flipping through a simple Mandarin Chinese storybook, the beauty of the story had me in awe, and also the relentless bugging of my mum with the question, “did they really turn into butterflies?”
“Oh 英雄本色! 好看! 周润发,很帅!”
My dad, despite his broken English, is a huge fan of war films and action flicks, prefers his movie appetite to be everything Western, seldom giving praises to Hong Kong movies or shows. A Better Tomorrow by John Woo (1986) is one of the rare movies which my mention of it garnered a positive response from him.
