Butterfly Lovers

Till death do us apart, but with the couple of the butterfly lovers, this say is not true. The legend of the earnest love and sacrifices of of two lovers Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai during the Jin Dynasty of China is shown and spread to the world in various means, novels,  movies and TV series. In 2006, a formal application for the proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on the Legand at UNESCO was submitted through the Chinese Ministry of Culture.

The legend was a bout beafutiful, intelligent and tomboy Zhu Yingtai who could finally persuade her parent to let her go to  school like other men.  She dressed up as a man accompanied by two of her servants to seek for her adventure at school. At school, she met Liang Shanbo, an intelligent and innocent gentalman. They swore to be brothers as though they couldn’t be born on the same date, they would die on the same date. The two sworn brothers studied and lived together for three years at school. Yingtai knew she had been deeply falling in love with Shanbo while he had no clues at all on Yingtai’s gender.

One day Yingtai was called to go back home. Before leaving she told Shanbo that she would be the matchmaker for him and her sister. Shanbo knew everthing when he met Yingtain in woman form at her house and they deeply fall for each other. Later, Yingtai was forced to marry another man from high ranking family. Shanbo with heartbroken fell seriously ill and later died.

On the day of Yingtai’s marriage, she ran to visit Shabo’s tomb and begged it to open up so that she could be with Shanbo forever. A strange phenomenon happened, the tomb did open up and Yingtai jumped into the tomb and died. The two lovers became butterflies and flew away.

This beautifully told legend was very well-known as well as a good sale as there are different adaptations have been made into series and movies.

In 1994, the Butterfly Lovers was put into big screen as The Lovers by Chinese director Tsui Hark, starring Asian idols, Nick Wu, Charlie Cheung and Peter Ho.

In 2007, it was once again put into a TV series starred by two of my favourite actors, Peter Ho and Dong Jie. The casting of this two heart-throb actors  brought lots of attention and high anticipation for the series from audiences. As expected from viewers, this production is considred to be the most comprehensive, finest and largest scale TV series presenting truest adaptation of the original legend.

Butterfly Lovers. Dong Jie as Yingtai and Peter Ho as Shanbo

Another movie of this popular legend in 2008 drew other three Asian heart throbs to a different adaptation on to the cinema screen. Charlene Choi, a Hong Kong’s film box office actress, Wu Chun, an idol popsinger from Taiwan, and Hu Ge, the hero from the popular TV series Chinese Paladin of the Mainland China, came to put their talents together into this new adaption. Audiences and of the three beautifully looked actors have highly anticipated for the movie, and it did earn a lot of supports.

However, I find this new adaptation is a wrong manipulation. If you want to watch to learn on the legend, I would suggest you watch the 2007 TV series rather this big screen movie. To me this new movie is a good eye-catching in terms of casting and scenery, but I prefer the 1994 version to this new adaptation. The changes of the traits and portraits of Liang Shanbo from a helpless scholar into a Kung Fu highly-armed student is the core to everything. To me I just find the old version is better. Though it was kind of old, but for sure, it was beautifully produced. It depicted more accuracies accordingly to the legend. It showed a beter romantic moments between the two lovers.

However, I do like one scene of the 2008 version. It is the scene that they are buried together. It is the most touching scene through out the whole movie.

The 2008 Butterfly Lovers (Dubbed inThai)

Here is the 1994 Version (Dubbed in Thai)