The film Butterfly King premiered in Canada on September 9, 1993. Directed by David Cronenberg, starring two men (Jeremy Irons and Zun Long) and written by Chinese-American playwright Jerelen Huang, the director tells the unusual story of Gao Renni, an official at the French Embassy in China, who fell in love with Chinese Peking opera actress Song Liling.
The love of butterflies in the story is certainly lamentable, but beyond this, the tragedy brought about by the illusion behind the butterfly's flapping wings is even more difficult to let go.
This cross-gender love is actually not as great as our later generations praise, because at the beginning of the encounter, they were actually a man and a woman.
The film is also based on a story that really happened in history. In 1964, while watching an opera, The French Embassy accountant Gao Renni (Jeremy Irons) fell in love with Song Liling (Zun Long), who played Madame Butterfly on stage, and in many contacts, the two promised each other for life. Later, when the Cultural Revolution broke out, Song Liling heard nothing. In 1968, Song Liling came to France and the two were reunited. Years later, when Gao Renni was accused of being a spy, standing on the witness stand was Song Liling in a suit and leather shoes.
As the name of the film suggests, behind the beautiful image of the butterfly, what is hidden is the subject of "Jun", which is expressed as a male in Chinese cultural imagination, which seems absurd, but in fact has a profound connotation.
As a deconstructive interpretation of "Madame Butterfly", Huang Zhelun borrowed Song Liling's mouth in "Butterfly Jun" to express the irony of this arrogance:
Think of it this way: If a blonde coming home fell in love with a diminutive Japanese businessman, what would you say? He treated her brutally and then returned home for three years, during which time she prayed for his photographs and rejected a young lad, Kennedy's marriage proposal. Then, when she learned that he was married again, she committed suicide. Now, I'm sure you'd think this girl is a bit crazy and a fool, right? But an Oriental woman commits suicide for a Westerner – ha! - That's what makes you feel beautiful. ”
Here, Song Liling, who is originally a boy, has actually hinted at her own attitude: she is not a butterfly attached to people, on the contrary, he actually has an attitude of compassion and disdain for the butterflies that Westerners are enthusiastic about.
However, Gourini, caught up in the admiration for a perfect oriental woman, could not detect such hints.
And whether Gao Renni's feelings for his "butterfly", Song Liling, are true love is worth playing.
The so-called "fake is true and false", but when a fanatical belief gradually evolves into a paranoia, the butterfly becomes a template that has been poured long ago, not an entity, how sincere and warm the love is at the beginning, and how disillusioned and bleak when the mask recedes.
The two most wonderful times in the film are completely different from the setting of "Madame Butterfly", which will shock the audience at the same time, but also produce inexplicable sadness.
In "Madame Butterfly", the sad "butterfly" is Madame Butterfly, and it is Madame Butterfly who ends her life in the beautiful fantasy, and the image of Pinkerton is a butterfly catcher, a presence that is superior to Oriental women despite "many flaws".
All he had about Madame Butterfly was a voyeuristic and curiosity about the Orient, a fantasy that would not last long, nor would it last. In Butterfly King, he thinks that the butterfly catcher is Gao Renni, but he does not know that what he has caught is not actually a butterfly.
Song Liling played the role of a butterfly, but he was not only a butterfly. From the viewer's point of view, he is more like a hunter.
Patiently waiting for the prey to enter the net, each step of control is done with ease, from the surprise when they meet, to the proper progress and retreat when Gao Renni pursues, to the seemingly weak obedience when the two are happy, to the absolute control of the actual situation, to finding a "child" similar to Gao Renni, and even to the torture and prayer when the two face each other again after everything is exposed...
Some critics have criticized that Huang Zhelun did not completely deconstruct "Madame Butterfly", and even believed that Huang Zhelun was blindly denying the superiority of the West, trying to enhance the pride of the East through the depiction of Western men being toyed with by Eastern men.
Regardless of the reason why Huang Zhelun, as a Chinese who lives overseas, is involved in both cultures but is difficult to penetrate, we can see from the film alone that the two butterflies of the East and the West actually did not win or lose in the end, because both people are tragic endings.
One dies of illusion, one extinguishes hope.
Song Liling once became the dream butterfly of the Western Gao Renni with a thin back and a gentle and amorous voice, and Gao Renni dressed up in prison with thick ink and paint, and died in the beautiful fantasy of the oriental butterfly.
At the end of the story, no one loses or wins, and whether it is true or false, it is only necessary for the audience to reluctantly look for clear evidence and metaphors in the story.
Song Liling serves the Chinese intelligence organization, and in addition to such an identity, he is indeed Gao Renni's butterfly.
Pretending to be pregnant and successfully stopping Gao's exploration of his body, he said to Gao, "No matter what, you saved my life."
These words came from the bottom of their hearts, even with secret gratitude, but Gorenni was immersed in the love of butterflies and could not understand them.
The two people in the prison car are facing each other, and Song Liling, who has restored men's clothes, seems to say "what do you really want", and even insists on taking off her clothes to completely break Gao Renni's fantasy, all because he has a little luxury, hoping that Gao Renni can accept a male self, rather than a beautiful butterfly, a feminine oriental woman.
So because of expectations, disappointment can seem so vulnerable.
When Gao Renni refused to separate the two in the two carriages, the dim light flew by, and what we heard in our ears was Song Liling's sad crying.
At this time, he is a soft butterfly, a woman who has poured her love, but unfortunately it is not acceptable to her lover.
Gorenni's love, I believe, is not fake.
It's just that his love is a vine that climbs along the imaginary model he once had, tangled and pulled, slowly making Song Liling move, and gradually making her heart cold.
Because he didn't love her purely, or rather, Song Liling only provided a vessel for his fantasies.
We can't ignore Song Liling's inherent desire to control and unwillingness as a man, although Song Liling relied on her own understanding of women to do what she liked and let Gao Renni fall in love with herself at first sight, but Gao's care for him also became a catalyst for his true awakening.
Gaureni's love is flawed. He said that he loved Song Liling to the point of "wanting to take her home, warm her, pamper her, and make her laugh", but when Song Liling revealed himself as a man to him, he acted like a dream disillusioned, and even ran to curse Song Liling's cruelty.
He loved Song Liling for twenty years, but he could not stand up to an identity after all.
There may be betrayal, but there is no doubt that what really destroyed him was the face of the perfect "butterfly" of the Oriental woman. Just like the butterfly that had always been proud suddenly revealed the true appearance of the caterpillar, the image he had already built up in his heart collapsed.
In disillusionment, he became the Butterfly Lady of the previous story, in prison, painting himself with oil paint, changing into the long clothes of oriental women, and ending his life with a mirror.
After this, Song Liling was sent back to China without a word. On the day he left, he looked cold, and the face of the boy's body was unconcealed, but it was also cold that could not be covered.
He had fallen in love with a man here, as a woman. But the man he loved couldn't accept him as a man. In the dim light of the carriage, they confessed for the last time, asking for salvation, but in the end they did not get it.
After that, I can't ask any more questions.
In the tragic story, there are two butterflies. One died in his performance, and one chose to incarnate as a butterfly after discovering the truth about the butterfly and died in such an identity.
The play that had been performed for more than twenty years finally ended, and there were no butterflies in the world since then.