The Butterfly Lovers (2004)

Director:

Min-chin Tsai

Genre:

Animation

Plot:

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Elva Hsiao	...	(voice)
Rene Liu	...	(voice)

Runtime:

Taiwan:95 min

Color:

Color

Company:

Central Motion Pictures Corporation

The animated legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai

The world has lots of wonderful stories to love and to share with other people; and here is one of those stories, straight from China and about centuries years old. The legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai is a beautiful, doleful, and moving love story that is set in China's Eastern Jin Dynasty, and I thought it was beautiful too, and I love it. The story also had the privilege of being adapted to stage plays, operas, TV series and movies, like this beautifully animated film I had watched online; after watching it I love it!

The film begins with a beautiful, intelligent young woman named Zhu Yingtai from Shangyu, Zhejiang, who is the only daughter of the wealthy noble Zhu family; of course in the story, Yingtai is the youngest out of 9 siblings- eight boys and one girl. After much effort, she convinced her father to let her disguise herself as a young man traveling to Hangzhou to study (because back then, women aren't allowed to go to school); so with a servant girl named Xīn Yín (disguised as a servant boy), Yingtai set off to school. During her journey, she encountered Liang Shanbo, a scholar from Kuaiji (now known as Shaoxing), in the same province, and his servant boy named Xì Jiǔ. They felt like old friends at the first meeting. Therefore, they took a vow of brotherhood by the river.

Over the months, Yingtai's love for Liang grew to consume her, and she thought of nothing else but spending all of her days with "Brother Liang." However, after a time Yingtai's mother began to send letters to her, asking her to come home. At the fifth letter, Yingtai relented and planned to tell Brother Liang her real identity before she left school. Menawhile, a wealthy (and unattractive) rival, Ma Wen Tsai, suspected Yingtai's real identity the whole while after their school's play, where Yingtai actually be her feminate self, by putting on her dress and letting down her hair to play part of the girl who is be sacrificed to the River God; while everyone in the school thought she is an effeminate man. Well anyway, Ma snuck up on Yingtai (who thought Ma was Liang and foolishly told him her confession that she is a girl), and told her then that he likes her and would like to marry her; and he also tell her that she should give up any dreams of marrying Liang Shanbo. Eventually Liang arrived, and after her confession, Liang and Yingtai promise one another that they will be together forever, this time as man and wife.

When Yingtai arrives home, she is shocked to find that Wen Tsai is already there with his wealthy and influential father. They pressure Yingtai and her family into a marriage to the Ma family, with Master Ma threatening calamity upon the Zhu family and Liang Shanbo if Yingtai does not comply, and she is given three days to decide. That's all I could tell you folks, you will have to see the film for yourself how it ends, and overall, I enjoyed it - this film; and the soundtrack too.