David Cronenberg has made a handsome, respectful film out of David Henry Hwang's intriguing, Tony award-winning play, "M. Butterfly." 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.
The story begins in Beijing in 1964, with the meeting of French diplomat Rene Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) and Song Liling (John Lone), a man who performs female roles in the Chinese Opera. The initially diffident, bigoted Gallimard is swept away by Song's charms, his love so blind that he never
realizes the girl of his dreams is, in fact, a man. Son...
Released:
1993
Rated:
R
Length:
100 mins