Storyline
In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera singer, Song Liling - but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.
Directors
Cast
Trailer
Reviews
63
M. Butterfly does not take hold the way the stage play did.
60
The New York Times
M. Butterfly as idiosyncratic as Mr. Cronenberg's work always is, is sometimes too flat and ambiguous for its own good.
50
Despite the sheer gorgeousness, it ends up feeling false and, towards the end, rushed.
50
The movie, however, seems to make the wrong decision at almost every opportunity, trying for the kind of melodramatic tragedy that only works in opera.
50
Though carefully cast and set in the most exotic of locales, the drama lacks any real excitement, the director's glacial style aligning itself all too patly with Hwang's arid rhetoric.
