Zhang Ziyi plays a freedom fighter against the Japanese aggression in the early 1930's Shanghai, while emotionally attached to three men who are on a track of wiping each other out. This is an overly simplified version of the film if you want to hear it in one sentence. But it is not about a love rectangle. It is about a young girl torturously trapped in between love and duty, in between the memory of the past she tries to avoid and the the future she dare not to think about, and in between the guilt of what she did and pity about the innocent.

The story starts in 1928, in the Northeast China (Manchuria), a young Chinese girl Xin Xia (Zhang Ziyi) sees the departure of her Japanese boyfriend Itami (Nakamura Tooru) to Japan. She returns home and witnesses her brother, who runs a newspaper opposing the Japanese aggression, bloodily murdered by a Japanese extremist. The story is re-picked up three years later in Shanghai. The Northeast China has fallen into the hand of the Japanese and menace of war has shadowed the city of Shanghai. Yiling (Li Bingbing) arrives at the train station to meet her boyfriend Situ (Liu Ye) who is returning home. On the platform, a mysterious woman shows up. She is Xin Xia, now known as Ding Hui and is a member of Purple Butterfly, a secret organization violently against Japanese infiltration of the city. Ding Hui and her comrades come to pick up a killer they hired to assassinate Yamamoto (Kin Ei), head of Japanese spy agency in Shanghai. But Siut is mistaken as the man they are looking for. Gunfight erupts out between members of Purples Butterfly and Japanese spies who have been tipped off by a mole. Yiling is gun down by Ding Hui and Situ is captured by the Japanese. Meanwhile, Itami, the new deputy of Yamamoto has arrived in Shanghai. He set Situ free in attempt to track down Purple Butterfly. Xie Ming (Feng Yuanzheng), leader of Purple Butterfly, asks Ding Hui to get in touch with her ex-lover, even though he himself is deeply in love with her. Reunion with Ding Hui quickly makes Itami falls for her again but his will of destroying Purple Butterfly remains unchanged. Situ is confused after seeing Ding Hui with both Purple Butterfly and the Japanese, and does not know who is really responsible for the death of Yiling...

PURPLE BUTTERFLY is written and directed by young Lou Ye, an active figure among the Sixth Generation Directors of China. Just like his last film, the internationally acclaimed SUZHOU RIVER, PURPLE BUTTERFLY carries on his highly cinematic artistic style - long shots, jump cuts, jazzy camera work and an intricate storytelling. Tone of the film is very dark and heavy. Everything, the streets, houses, vehicles, and even the clothes look very old, rusty and grayish. The almost non-stop rain makes everything on the screen wet and everyone watching the screen feel cold. (I know it's summer right now.) There are very few dialogues and for audience who are trying to figure out what is going on, they are not really helpful. But there are many dead quite and long close-up shots, in which both the camera and the characters are motionless. This left their faces, getting so close to the camera and we can even count how many freckles on their noses, the only thing left to show what is inside his or her mind.