Mr. Butterfly (2003)

Mr. Butterfly was a melodramatic film set in 1980 after the assassination of President Park. Two lovers with matching butterfly tattoos are separated, reunited, and torn apart once more. Despite nefarious forces at work they seek to reunite again.

Min Jae leaves his rural town for Seoul promising Eun Ji he will return in a year when the snow falls again. But Min Jae forgets all about Eun Ji and joins a gang. When that doesn’t pan out he takes on work as a gigolo. Five years later he runs into Eun Ji scarcely recognizing her. When she brushes him off, he tracks her down and discovers she is the mistress of an evil colonel. The two decide to flee together but Colonel Cho has other plans for Min Jae.

That first hour of this film was agonizing. The acting was awful and the story was patchworked together. The director must have decided that rain and snow were powerful emotional indicators, so one or the other was nearly always falling. A comedic side story was included with two warring men volunteering to be on the bus to the Samchung Revival Camp. Of course, Min Jae ended up on the bus involuntarily. The camp was renowned for its brutal treatment of prisoners being “re-educated” so it was not surprising that Min Jae was constantly being tortured.

The biggest problem I had with Mr. Butterfly was not even the overly dramatic acting, music and story. Min Jae hadn’t given Eun Ji a thought for five years and suddenly he was ready to die for her. Both he and Eun Ji made stupid, disastrous decisions. Not unlike the Butterfly Lovers or Romeo and Juliet, you just want to tell the characters, “Hey, guys, why don’t you stop and think things through first.” But that wouldn’t have resulted in dire situation after dire situation with all the accompanying emotional crises. If you enjoy melodramatic tragedy interlaced with slapstick comedy and dated acting, this might be one to try, otherwise better to make like a butterfly and flutter away from it.

18 August 2026
Trigger warnings: Physical abuse, sexual abuse, torture, smoking.

Butterfly note: The prisoners commented on butterflies being a weak species. I beg to differ with them. The Monarch butterflies migrate over 2000mi/3200km each year, braving weather, predators, cars, food scarcity, and all manner of danger. Sounds pretty badass to me!

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