Butterfly and Sword

A berserk action melodrama with all the stops pulled out, Butterfly and Sword is an adrenaline-charged swordplay fantasy that starts out over the top, and then continues to blast its way through the roof, out of the ball park, and on into the stratosphere. The plot follows two hired killers, Hard-Boiled's Tony Leung Chi Wah and Supercop's Michelle Yeoh, as they attempt to keep a gang of vicious baddies from overthrowing the government. Further confusing matters are a series of bizarre romantic complications involving Leung's wife, who is unaware that her husband is a deadly assassin and a drunken swordsman who is secretly in love with Yeoh, who is, in turn, secretly in love with Leung. When you're not busy shaking your head at the ridiculously convoluted storyline, you'll be busy picking your jaw up off the floor during the picture's many crazed action sequences, which have greatly contributed to the film's strong stateside cult following. Characters routinely spin upside-down through the air, use soccer balls as deadly weapons, run up walls with the greatest of ease, shred opponents into pieces in seconds flat, and, in a particularly memorable moment, use one another as a human bow and arrow, sending Leung Chi Wah flying straight through bad guys like a knife through butter! Whew! Obviously, Butterfly and Sword is not for everybody; its lunatic energy, surreal violence, and haphazard plotting may be off-putting to those viewers unfamiliar with similarly loony Hong Kong adventures, and if suspension of disbelief is at all a problem for you, stay away from this movie at all costs. However, if you're an admirer of this type of stuff (which I am), or like your entertainment enthusiastically served up fast and furious, then don't miss out on this spectacular bit of wildly exciting nonsense.