Customer Rating: 
Summary: We Make Our Own Reality
Comment: I thoroughly enjoy watching this movie over and over. I remember seeing the Barbara Walters interview with the real life participants in this story and being able to see the real people(especially their "son" as an adult) and hearing their stories helped me become very curious as to how a story like this could unfold. I was completely blown away by John Lone in this portrayal of Song Lilling and think he did an awesome job with what he had to work with. He played the nemesis in the Alec Baldwin movie The Shadow. Watch that movie and then watch this one and tell me the man doesn't have range as an actor! I have shown this movie to several men who have NO IDEA what the movie is about and they are SHOCKED to find out Song Lilling is a man. I find it interesting that most of the reviewers here have been so negative about John's portrayal. He wasn't wearing any padding in the chest to try hard to be a woman. His character in this movie is a MAN who in real life fooled another man into thinking he was a woman because Renee' CHOSE his own reality. Maybe Song Lilling was right in the movie dialogue to her Comerade(paraphrased but never forgotten quotable line from this movie)--Do you know why most of the roles of women in Chinese opera are traditionially played by men? Because only men know how a true woman is supposed to act. --Jeremy Irons and John Lone give incredible and underrated performances in this movie. They believed in the project and it shows. The music is gorgeous, the costumes are very "Memoirs of a Geisha" and anyone who is a fan of The Crying Game or any play by Charles Busch should purchase this movie. The music, scenery, and locations alone rate 4 of the stars I have assigned to it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Completely implausible plot
Comment: I fail to understand what the true story could have been that the film is supposedly based on. The plot is completely implausible. Leaving aside the basic premise of the film that Gallimard can sleep with a man without noticing this man was in fact a man and not a woman... just one example: does anybody really believe that the French police (perhaps with the exception of Luis de Funes) would transport two suspects together so that they can conveniently discuss a common strategy of hiding their former spying activiites? Preposterous if you ask me. Not to mention that there were absolutely no bumps on the road during the whole scene in the police van... (was that perhaps a hovercraft?) And there are also more improbabilities that the average European or American eyes fail to see but that left my Chinese wife totally flabbergasted... I wonder if David Cronenberg ever bothered to consult experts in the field as is the good practice with movies that involve distant regions, long-gone periods of history or special fields of human activity. Now back to the basic premise of the film, and I am not spoiling the final surprise for anyone because you figure out Butterfly is a man as soon as you have a look at the photographs on the box of the videocasette... my only explanation is that Gallimard was in fact bisexual and because of that decided to play the part of Butterfly himself in this weird relationship... be this a postscript to the dicusssion in the previous reviews as to whether John Lone was sufficiently female to be persuasive... All that having been said, the movie has its good moments and an intensive atmosphere, maybe too theatrical at times, but overall worth watching if you are a fan of things oriental or like to explore sexual ambiguities...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Comment: I don't think anyone could have done justice to writing the screenplay to M Butterfly (based on David Henry Hwang's stage play) than Hwang himself. While it is a bit of a departure from the 1988 play based on the true story of a French diplomat who falls in love with a Chinese opera singer and the disastrous outcome of their affair, as a film it could not have been done otherwise.Jeremy Irons, a wonderful actor no matter what role he plays, makes for an astounding Rene Gallimard. Less sarcastic than John Lithgow, who created the role on Broadway, Irons gives new depth and intensity to the frustrated, naive accountant. The dramatic depth to John Lone's Song Liling is equal to Irons and equal in departure from BD Wong's somewhat giggly Broadway portrayal of the Chinese diva.
A great deal of "s" words can be used to describe David Cronenberg's film, the top of that list including subtle and sexy. The tone is set, mostly, by the score--which includes traditional-sounding Chinese music and variations of Puccini's Madame Butterfly (especially the recurring theme of "Un Bel Di")--and the scenery (shot in the Far East and Budapest). The ubiquitous soft red and gold tones add to the seductive, nearly erotic edge of the film, all of which culminate at the end.
I don't want to give any of it away, mainly because when I saw the movie I had already read and seen the play, and there is so much more meaning to realize the end with Rene, but I will say that it is moving to the point of tears. Not necessarily because of the outcome, but more in how the actors play it and how the director has realized it. If you have ANY interest in purchasing this film (especially if you have any experience with Hwang's stage play), by all means buy it. It won't disappoint.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Moving
Comment: Considering that it was a Cronenberg movie, I found it surprisingly normal and accessible. I also found it thoroughly engrossing and much more emotionally satisfying than I's expected, given some of the reviews. Jeremy Irons gave his usual pitch-perfect performance; perhaps this film was something of a warm-up for his playing Humbert Humbert in the similarly themed Lolita. However, I was blown away even more by John Lone. He wasn't as convincing as a woman as he might have been, but that really wasn't the point, and when you see his transformation to his true persona at the end of the film, the sheer contrast, and the conviction to both the performances, should prove just how talented he is.
Overall, I found an unexpected treasure here; what from the box could have been a overwraught weepy sex-drama was actually intelligent, emotionally truthful, and well made.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just Like a Woman
Comment: M. Butterfly was one of David Cronenberg's more poorly received films, but I think it's actually pretty underrated. It bears mentioning, however, that I felt the same way about his take on William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, which also received mixed reviews, but can't have been an easy work to adapt. M. Butterfly is an adaptation of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award winning play and is based on a true story (Naked Lunch, despite its radical form, was also largely based on events from Burroughs' life -- both real and imagined).I think the timing of M. Butterfly's release was partly to blame for its lukewarm reception as it touches on some of the same gender, sexual orientation and cultural issues as Farewell My Concubine, which was released around the same time. Chen Kaige's more controversial, but widely praised Chinese epic went on to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes. M. Butterfly does pale a bit in comparison. Leslie Cheung is more dynamic than The Last Emperor's John Lone in a similar part (as a man specializing in female operatic roles) -- but it's still a worthwhile effort and a change of pace for Mr. Cronenberg from his usual high-tech sci-fi/horror scenarios. And Jeremy Irons can almost always be counted on to give a quality performance (Dungeons and Dragons aside...). Rene Gallimard may represent a less challenging role than that of Dead Ringers' twin gynecologists, but Irons makes this lovesick French diplomat sympathetic and believable even as lets his love for Lilong Song (Lone) blind him to the seemingly obvious truth of the matter -- that the woman he's fallen in love with is really not a woman at all.
