Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Butterfly Murders

Hello and welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. My name is Joe McCormick. Today, we're running an older episode of Weird House Cinema. This was originally published November 17th, 2023, and it is about the 1979 Hong Kong Wooshah film, The Butterfly Murders. Ooh, this was a good one. Hope you enjoy. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema, this is Rob Lam. And I am Joe McCormick, and today's pick on Weird House is the genre-defying 1979 Hong Kong martial arts bonanza, the butterfly murders directed by She-Hock.

This movie is great. It has everything. It's part Wusha, it's part eco horror. I didn't expect it to be so much like like frogs and other eco horror movies we've done. It's part murder mystery, but it's also all killer butterflies.

That's right. This one's a real treat. It's almost like a fitting pre Thanksgiving dinner kind of a film because it's just stuffed to the gills. As we'll discuss, no doubt, this is perhaps a sense too of like talented filmmakers first movie syndrome where clearly they had so many ideas that needed to be unleashed on the world and they're all present. So it's maybe a little

a little bit overloaded in that regard. But yeah, there's so many interesting elements. I'd throw in proto slasher, gothic horror, and also there's a little bit of the old reading of the will drama thrown in there as well. Yes, absolutely. You know, one thing I really respect about this movie is that I don't actually know what it was called in the, I guess, original Cantonese marketing, but the English title

delivers on the promise in a quite literal fashion. So it's called the butterfly murders. And the butterfly murders is not about like a serial killer who draws a butterfly at every crime scene or something. That's what you would guess based on that title, right? It's always that kind of annoying fake out. But in this case, no, it is literally about people who are murdered by swarms of bloodthirsty butterflies.

Absolutely. And I think my initial guess when I started running across this title was, oh, it's a serial killer. It's some sort of like, oh, he leaves a butterfly as his signature or something. But no, it's straight up butterfly swarms. Well, there are human intelligences behind the butterfly crimes, but they really are carried out via swarms of butterflies.

Multiple reviews I've seen compare this film to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and yes, I definitely see some similarities. I think there may have been some conscious relationship there, except as absurd as the premise of The Birds itself was, at least birds have beaks and talons. This is about killer butterflies.

And the crazy thing is, this movie succeeds at making butterflies scary. Well, I don't know, that was my opinion. I don't know if you agree, Rob, but I was shocked at how creepy it makes the butterflies.

Absolutely. I feel like it's essentially a goofy concept, right? Because you can break down and say, OK, well, there are examples of butterflies and moths that have some level of toxicity to them. But there's no such thing as a killer butterfly. Butterflies are not threatening. And yet this movie on the whole succeeds in making them feel like at least sort of an ambient environmental threat.

However, on top of just that home run of a premise, Killer Butterflies, I want to say across the board, I thought this movie was generally number one, excellent, like really well made, and number two, bananas. It is just nuts in basically every direction.

Yeah, I agree. Now I do have to emphasize that this movie, in its currently available international form, is not an easy to follow film if you're trying to just absolutely absorb every detail of the plot. So much plot.

Yeah, it is, you know, it is a historic martial arts fantasy adventure film, Aloosa, but it's, it's one with, yeah, complex plot, multiple characters, parallel mysteries, and feuding factions. And all of that's perfectly fair, but the English subtitles are rough. And while rough subtitles can prove perfectly serviceable for many films, Son of Peach and Thrilling Bloody Sword come to mind, and those have some really rough subtitles.

But with this one, again, given all that complexity, it's an uphill battle because there's just so much going on to try and understand it, just going off the subtitles. There's also quite a bit of narration. So I'm not pinning any of this on the film itself or the people who made it, but it is a struggle to piece all this together at times while also taking in all the excellent details, those moody sets, and the face melting action.

I'm going to say that I think you can watch this movie and get perfect enjoyment, like at least 90% of the potential enjoyment of this film without closely following what all of the factions and alignments and plot twists are. And I was actually wondering, when we get into the plot description section of this episode, I kind of don't know how I'm going to handle it because I made detailed notes trying to follow the plot, but it is so complicated. I'm like, are we going to have to skip over a bit of this? I don't know.

Yeah. However, I would not say that all of the complicated plot machinations are just like completely extraneous. Like you can enjoy the movie without trying to follow too closely. And at the same time, I think all the plot twists are like really fun and exciting. It's just sort of twist after twist in the second half of the movie. Yeah, absolutely. It never really lets up. There's always something captivating. It's almost too captivating. Again, if you're trying to follow everything with the subtitles.

All right, Joe, what's your elevator pitch for the butterfly murders? Let's say a scholar, a gang boss, and a wire flying martial heroine walk into a castle haunted by killer butterflies. All right, let's hear a little bit of the trailer audio. Note that this is from a rather long trail. It's like four minutes long. I believe this is the original Hong Kong trailer. So we're just going to hear a little part of it, but hopefully getting some of that excellent theme music in there.

So say,

Now, before we proceed, you may be wondering, well, how can I watch the butterfly murders? Well, it's not an easy one to get your hands on, unfortunately, right now. This is a film where the best available quality is very watchable, but it has not benefited from restoration. English subtitles, they're not hard baked,

But they are rough. So if you're not a Chinese speaker, you're going to have some difficulties with it. It looks like it has streamed on prime before back when they had loads of weird stuff. But today you're limited to just a few hard to find region free DVDs or international release DVDs. We rented it from video drum here in Atlanta.

and you might find a watchable unofficial stream somewhere, but yeah, this is one that certainly has a following and it would be nice to see a really well produced release at some point in the future.

I agree. I wish there was a really great Blu-ray restoration of this because it clearly is a fantastic looking movie. But even the DVD we had had a lot of, I don't know, it was not in good shape. But there was a lot of like washed out color and weird kind of like pop-ins of different color shades on certain scenes. So I don't know, it seems like whatever source film material they were working from was not in the best of shape.

I even found there's something of a history of this movie being hard to get in good format. I was reading a post about it on I think dig h k movies dot com seems to be some kind of website about Hong Kong cinema. That points out that the only way that for many years that English speakers could watch the film was on a laser disc which number one had like an improperly cropped aspect ratio on the.

On the screen and also there was a quote commercial for an amusement park at the end of side one. I almost kind of want to see it in that format. That's like the commercials in the Star Wars holiday special. They're part of the experience.

Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's details like this, and of course, sadly, this is still in play for this film, but it reminds you of the lengths folks had to go to watch some of these films back in the day, this on top of various VHS dubs and VHS dubs of the Japanese laser disc of some European release and so forth.

But like we said, there are some sort of under the radar rips out there that are not great quality. It's not the best way you're going to see it. But this movie is worth seeing. So especially if you can get access to the DVD that's out there, it's pretty cool. I'd recommend it.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And again, the best version that's out there is very watchable. This isn't one of those situations like with pod people or extraterrestrial visitors where the previously available footage was just not great at all. More on that because we're going to re-feature that one as a weird house rewind and I have some updates about the available quality on that film.

Oh yeah, the old version of that was almost like watching the movie being projected in a cloud of smoke. Yeah, yeah. This one looked perfectly watchable.

All right, let's talk about some of the folks behind this. So we already mentioned the director here, Sheikah or Sheikhark or Sheikhuk. I think you'll hear his name referenced in varying ways. We'll just keep referring to him as Hawk here. He was born in 1950, Vietnamese born, Texas educated Hong Kong film director, producer and screenwriter.

He studied film at Southern Methodist University in Texas and then at the University of Texas at Austin, graduated in 1975, worked in New York City for a bit. I believe he worked on a documentary about New York's Chinatown, and then returned to Hong Kong in 77. So this was his first film, and it was a bold attempt to revitalize with the Wuxiao genre, with various genre influences and excellent cinematic craft.

While apparently not a huge hit at the time, it's now considered a minor masterpiece. I saw it referred to as such in an article in the South China Morning Post by Richard James Havas. And it's also considered something of a new wave sensation in Chinese cinema. It's long been a cult favorite internationally as well. I was not surprised at all to see that Michael Weldon had it catalogued in the psychotronic video guide from decades back.

Now, Hawk went on to have an exceptional career and is still active as a director and producer. His directing credits include 1980's Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind. 1980's were going to eat you, that is a cannibal film. 1983's Zoo Warriors from the Magic Mountain.

1991's Once Upon a Time in China, 93's Green Snake, and 20 Tim's Detective D and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. You mentioned Zoo Warriors from the Magic Mountain. In multiple sources I've seen that movie highlighted as sort of his masterpiece, or at least his masterpiece if you're looking for like weird Hong Kong cinema instead of his like Western movies. All right, we may have to come back and look at that one.

Now purely western audiences might know him best from his films, from two films in particular, Double Team from 97. This is a film that starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman, Paul Freeman, and Mickey Rourke. Have you seen this one, Joe? I don't remember. If I did, I saw it before I could appreciate it, I think.

I look back to see what Ebert had to say about it. Roger Ebert wrote, double theme is one of the most preposterous action films ever made, and I do not mean that as a criticism. It will give you some notion of this movie's strangeness if I tell you that Dennis Rodman does not play the most peculiar character.

Great. I mean, I want to see it now. Another film that he did that international audiences might have heard of is Black Mask II, City of Mass from 2002. It has a cast that includes Tobin Bell, that's old Jigsaw for he saw fans, Pro wrestler Rob Van Dam, Tracy Lords of Blade fame, and also Tyler Maine, who I think he played Michael Myers in some of the Rob Zombie films didn't he, and he played Sabretooth in the first X-Men.

Yeah, that's right. I have not seen it. I have not seen it either. I guess I feel like I don't think I've seen any of his other movies that I recall, and I've got to fix that. Yeah, absolutely, because there's so many of them, and he's had such a long career. Certainly the weirder entries. I'm interested in zoo warriors, I'm interested in the cannibal flick, and who knows what else is in there.

All right, the writers on this, we have Chi Minh Lam, who was active from 1979 to 1984, probably best known for this film, along with 1980s The Buddhist Fist in 1984 as the Ghost Informer, and then the other writer is Fan Lin. This is their only credit on multiple databases, including Hong Kong movie database.

All right, now getting into the actors a bit, I'm not gonna highlight everyone, but try and hit our main ones here. And Joe, you may have to jump in here because the names that I have are mostly, the character names are mostly off of IMDB. You might have a different version from the subtitles, because I think the subtitles deviate a little bit.

spelled differently. Yeah, so our main character, according to the subtitles, was known as Fong. This is the scholar, the nerd of the film, if you like. Yes, and the actor here is Suming Lau, born 1931, Hong Kong actor known for 1987's A Chinese Ghost Story, which we watched. He plays the tree devil in that. Nice. 2006's Recycle, 1987's A Better Tomorrow 2, as well as the 2003 film The Medallion.

I think that's a Jackie Chan film. I don't recall offhand. I'm also going to just looking. Sometimes I just enjoy finding strange titles on especially international films. There's a 1989 film titled Eat a Bowl of Tea. So why not? Why not eat a bowl of tea?

I like his portrayal of this character, so he is essentially the only non-warrior character completely surrounded by warriors in every other direction, so he's lover, not a fighter, but he's not really a lover either. He's a chronicler, and yet they don't portray him as like a coward. He is a brave non-fighter in a way.

Yeah, like other movies might have positioned him as more of kind of like your sniveling, even comic relief character, but he's more of a scholar in sort of the traditional, sort of in the traditional Chinese sense of like, you know, he is a noble scholar who is recording these strange events and sharing them with the surviving world.

Yeah. All right. We also have, oh, what a character. We have green shadow. I love green shadow. Sign me up for the green shadow fan club.

He has green shadow, especially seems to be flying around on wires and grappling hooks and using like wire based martial arts. I don't know when exactly this started in film, but yeah, this is her performance in this movie is cited as an example of what's sometimes called like wire food or like wire work in martial arts films, but it's not one of those cases where like in some films characters are depicted as having kind of a

energy or magic power that allows them to fly or leap beyond what would be normally physically possible for humans and that is achieved via wire-based special effects. In this case, she explicitly and openly uses wires that that is her martial arts style. She swings from cords and wires and zips along on them and dangles from apparently just out of the sky on wires.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, she's a wire specialist and and she's at a light played by Michelle Yum born 1956 Hong Kong cinema actress This was not her first film and I think it kind of shines through because she has this kind of guy I don't know just this sort of this effortless charisma in the film. Yeah Just just very likable. She's a she's a lovable scamp She and just did a light every time she's on the screen

In this situation of like death and disease and high stakes conflict and factional fighting and betrayal and secret murders, she's just always extremely cheerful and two steps ahead of everybody else. Yeah. So yeah, she's a lot of fun. She's also in the 1980 Cannibal movie, We're Going to Eat You. And she was also apparently a popular force on Hong Kong television for a long time.

Love Green Shadow, but I would say this movie actually has a lot of really charismatic martial arts heroes in it. The other main fighter hero we follow in this movie is Boss Tin or Tin Fung. And I also found him super charismatic, even though he's less of a nice character than Green Shadow. Yeah, he's a professional criminal and gang leader.

but has this great stern face, this great presence. I would almost compare him to sort of a snake pliskin sort of a vibe, you know, an old west kind of a vibe, you know, again, very stern face, very stern presence. Solid performance, great action role here.

The actor is Shoutong Wang, who lived 1944 through 2021, Hong Kong actor and director whose other acting credits include 1972's Five Fingers of Death. He also worked as a stunt coordinator on various films, including this one.

Yeah, so obviously his stunt work in the martial arts scenes is great, since he's the stunt coordinator. But also, I think he does really well as an actor. He's got a great face for the role. He has this kind of stone-like immovability in many scenes where you're just like, no, he's not going to budge.

All right, the next character we have is the master of the castle, Master Shum. I've also seen it as Shin in the credits. But this is another strong screen presence for reasons we'll get into. But the actor here is Kuchu Chang, born in 1948. Taiwanese actor active from 74 through present. His other films include 1991's A Brighter Summer Day, 1996's Meijang, and 1981's Love Massacre. That's not a horror movie. It looks like it's some sort of a drama.

But for some reason has the English name love massacre. Okie dokie. All right. Now there are a number of other like gang members and specialized fighters we'll get into. I'm not going to highlight all of them, but I have to mention the magic fire guy here. Yeah. Guya who's played by Eddie Coe.

Born 1937, easily recognizable Shaw Brothers veteran, active from 1967 through present. He acted in a lot of Lucia and did some notable Hong Kong TV back in the 70s and 80s, eventually migrated to Canada and has appeared in such Western films as 98th Lethal Weapon IV and 2015's The Martian. Though I believe he's still quite active in Chinese cinema and TV as well. But he has this very expressive face. And in this movie, he spends a lot of time blowing stuff up

catching his enemies on fire, and then laughing maniacally.

You know, I was kind of surprised by the thunders. Like when they were first showing up, it really catches you off guard because you don't really know whether they're good guys or bad guys. And that really continues. Like long after they have appeared, you're trying to figure out how to sort them mentally because this guy in some scenes, he's kind of, you're kind of with him. He's kind of one of the good guys, but also he is like, he's a nasty fire shooting killer. And he ultimately,

Well, I don't want to spoil the ending just yet. We will have spoilers later in this episode, but the ending is a shock and it involves him. Yeah, yeah, so fun character. I did when a thunder started really showing up in earnest. I was also a little bit worried because I'm like, Oh my goodness, it's getting more complex. Yeah, I'm going to give track of everyone.

Just one other actor I'll mention, Tino Wong plays 1,000 hands, Lee Kim. He was also the action director on the film. I'm not necessarily all in the clear on who did what on this movie, but he is credited as action director and not just a stunt coordinator or whatever. His other films include 1978's Drunken Master and 78 Snake in the Eagle Shadow. Another great martial arts-focused performance here.

Yeah. And then the score is by Frankie Chan, born 1951, Hong Kong cinema composer, actor and director, who in my non-expert opinion here, absolutely knocks it out of the park with a score full of more traditional feeling, Wuxia motifs, as well as bonkers synth notes that hit you right in the boards of Canada. And funk. There are funky parts. There's a little funk there too. Now I'm not clear on like how

I couldn't find any details about the score. And I know sometimes you're dealing with a score in these movies that maybe are borrowing from multiple sources. So I can't say with any clarity how it all came together. Or if this is all original, or if it's coming from other films or stock, et cetera. But yeah, I loved everything I heard in the movie. That first synth cascade upon seeing a butterfly, that really knocked my socks off.

There are a lot of moments in this movie where you suddenly get an extreme close-up of a butterfly, and then there's something that's, I don't even know if I would call it music. There's kind of a rhythmic thumping or drumming sound that becomes very loud. It's almost like you are hearing the movements of the butterflies' legs or wings on the scale of an insect, but it's like a John Bonham drum fill, and it's really cool.

He's credited with composing on a number of other films, including 78's The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, 1980's Encounter of the Spooky Kind, 76's Master of the Flying Guillotine. And that one gives me pause on this whole, like, how did the music come together? Because I know that's one that if memory serves, famously draws from Western music sources. Yeah. Two great effect. I mean, in a brilliant way. Yeah. He also was credited on 75's The Super Infra Man.

76 is the oily maniac. A lot of movies we've covered. Yeah. And his directorial credits include 1990s outlaw brother.

All right, you want to get into the plot? Oh, let's get into it. All right, so as I teased earlier, it's kind of difficult to figure out how to approach this one. Like, should we try to explain the whole plot or employ the skip a bit, brother, principal from Monty Python? I'm going to start off talking in some detail. And then if we find this is too much, maybe we can zoom out a little bit.

Okay, sounds good. All right, so the film begins with narration. It shows a mist blowing in front of a full moon. And the narrator who we will later find out is is Fong, the scholar, tells us, quote, in the 36 year period before the new era, two devastating wars took place in the Marshall world.

And the idea of a martial world seems to be a sort of concept in this movie where it's like, this is the world in which all of the martial arts fighters sort of compete for power. And it includes, especially whatever this character will get to in a minute, boss 10 is doing. He's in charge of something that seems to me

to be maybe mercenary armories, maybe a criminal gang, maybe some sort of pseudo or quasi-governmental thing, but he just commands a lot of fighters, so he's big in the martial world. Is that how you understood it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's kind of like a master of a guild or a guild of warriors kind of a thing. Yeah.

So Fong tells us in narration that there was this first war in the Dimchong Mountain. Many were killed, hungry condors filled the skies. There was a second war in Wudong Mountain or in the bottom of Wudong Mountain. It says, there were many were killed again. And then it says, from that time onwards, quote, most masters in the martial world were all dead. Thus, the martial world entered the quiet period lasting over 30 years. On the surface, it was a strange truce. In fact,

there were undercurrents of unrest, then emerged 72 new forces termed the 72 Trails of Smoke heralding the dawn of the new era. And then here, while the narration goes on, we see this barren sandy landscape with smooth white sand, almost like a beach, though I don't think it's a beach. I think it's a desert. There are mountains in the distance, and in the foreground, there is a single lonely tree branch blowing in the wind.

So already we're kind of in the deep end here. But I love the texture that is presented because at least as far as I was understanding the subtitles and all of this.

Like it's almost a post-apocalyptic setting. Like the warriors have become so skilled that they killed each other, killed everyone off. And so we're in this momentary peaceful period, but there's still these undercurrents of like reaching and grasping for the old military technologies and tactics that will of course inevitably bring us back up to where we were before.

That's exactly right. Yeah, that's how I understood the setting. There used to be a bunch of martial arts heroes. They all killed each other than there were 30 years without martial arts heroes. And now the martial world is returning.

This would be great. They keep doing sequels to all these fighting games, and it's always the same thing every time. Like, do this instead. Yeah, I think it's a good premise. Okay, but the narrator goes on to explain his own place in this. He says, in these warring years, a traveling scholar untrained in martial arts, recorded the important events of the era, and sold them for a living. His name is Fong, and I am that one. He says, to this martial world, I wasn't observer, but inevitably, I become totally involved.

This is a good sort of taste of the subtitle character. You can follow it, but there's some nuance missing there. Yeah, there's some translation issues, some things clearly getting lost in the translation of the English subtitles. We can mention a few more moments like that as we go on.

But overall, yeah, you can follow what's happening. So we see a man come over the horizon and crunching through the sand. He wears simple robes, appears to be a humble and quiet fellow, and this is Fong. Fong approaches a castle surrounded by tall grass, and then there is an explosion in one of its towers.

And then the narration continues, returning from Tibet in the 24th of the new era. I met Tim Fone, the leader of the 10 flags, and intriguing encounter. And then in a quite funny way, there's a sudden cut to just like funk music, like heavy funk groove and wicky wicky guitars.

So on screen we see a hand of an unknown person reaching for the sky, fingers curled into a fist, and then the hand opens to reveal in its palm a butterfly. The butterfly flies away, title screen, the butterfly murders, and we get a song with lyrics. So I want to say what the lyrics are as translated in subtitles here.

The lyrics are smoke arises, blood is in the air. Life of death, I must face it. Trying to escape yet you are already trapped. Suspicious arise. Confidence shattered, one whiff and I am down forever. Who is to grieve? Who is to be glad? Isn't this all from the bridge to Metallica's one? Like I can just imagine it. James Hetfield like belting it out. Like da da da da da da da da. Confidence shot.

But no, it's a kind of lilting ballad sort of melody. Yeah, it's nice. I think you've probably heard part of it in the trailer audio we played. But now you know what it's said.

All the while, this opening credit sequence, while the music is playing, it is trying really hard to make butterflies look menacing, and to my surprise, succeeding. We see butterflies landing in a lighting from rocks along the bank of a mountain stream. Then there are several shots where butterflies are not flying.

but perched on the rocks and just sort of pumping their wings rhythmically while they stay perched there. I've seen this movement before and, of course, never thought to interpret it as threatening, but with the right focus, somehow it does look a bit that way. It does look a bit like some kind of, I don't know, predatory animal flexing its jaws. It's interesting how framing can change the way you see an utterly harmless animal.

Oh, but also I thought before the song is finished, it just cuts off like in midline and smash edits to a roaring waterfall with no music playing.

So here it goes on introducing the characters. It says, the powerful tin foam leads his tin flags of men. So I think he rules the tin flags are 10 different gangs or guilds of martial arts fighters. And so overall, what he leads, I think is known as the tin clan, but there are 10 different gangs within it. And so, and they're like color coded. So there's like the red flags and the white flags and so forth.

And the camera pans and we see the bodies of many swordsmen lying dead on the rocks in the middle of a river with blood running into the foamy rapids and swirling around them. I think this is supposed to indicate like these are the enemies of Boston. Boston has defeated them all.

Then it gets to something else. It's like, okay, here's a scene for you. It happened in the 24th of the new era, on the sixth day of the six month in bar bridge paper mill, founded for over 80 years. An unusual incident happened. That's the narration. So here we see a pre-industrial paper mill in operation. Workers are boiling down wood products and rags in water.

pounding out sheets of paper and hanging them up to dry. But it's not just a paper mill. This appears to be a combination paper mill and printing press. So some of the workers are in like a different part of the setting are ranging type blocks and pressing them with ink and then pressing paper against them.

I loved all the little details in this sequence. I feel like he does a really great job establishing the setting and the sense of enterprise here is just really drawn in. Again, this is technically a very proficient film. So, you know, all this stuff that might be sort of wasted motion in a lesser film is all very engaging.

I agree. I feel like this director is really skilled with setting and situation. This is a movie where you always have a really good feeling of where you are and what it feels like where the scene is taking place. Yeah.

Now here we get our first real-time scene with dialogue. A man, a kind of suspiciously behaving man, comes into the paper mill with a proposition for the boss. They sit down and share a cup of tea. The boss, I believe he smokes his pipe or something. And the visitor produces a book in what looks like scroll form from his satchel. He asks if the mill would be able to print 5,000 copies of this document within 10 days.

What is it? The mysterious visitor says he came across this book by accident, but that it is the memoirs of Fong describing the quote, unusual events of the last 10 years. And this causes like a music sting. The boss is surprised. He almost sort of spits out his pipe.

And the visitor says that the boss will make lots of money by selling this book. Okay, so the boss of the paper mill is not just making paper, not just printing on it, but I think also operating a bookstore and selling books. But anyway, the visitor is like, okay, print up this book, sell a bunch of copies, you'll make money.

Oh, and just in the middle here, we get this little interlude where it's just showing us the printing press workers who are arranging the words on the type blocks. One is narrating the text to the other while he puts the characters in place, and the narration goes, my beloved came riding on a bamboo horse, and the guy kind of sings along. I just really liked this moment.

Yeah. But the boss says he does not think that these pages are authentically the work of Fong because they do not match Fong's handwriting. So he knows what Fong's handwriting looks like. And then next thing, paper mill workers find the boss dead, hanging upside down in the back of the print shop and the visitor is gone. He seems to have busted out through one of the windows.

It's very eerie scene. There are all these papers hung up on clotheslines for the ink to dry, and they're flapping in the wind from a smashed window. Already, we have printing press drama in this film. What was going on? What was this mysterious, apparently fraudulent work that they were trying to get published and distributed? We'll find out later on in the film.

Yeah, why would this guy kill a print boss for refusing to, or for refusing to print this book or for recognizing that it was not Fong's handwriting? Well, next to the narration tells us that the bar bridge, the place where the printing press was, and the paper mill was, was in the territory of Tin Clan's white flag. So that's one of Boston's gangs. So it's like they control that area.

And so it says, several days afterwards, we see someone in a wide-brimmed hat running through a field of tall weeds, pursued by a gang of men with hooked blades. He is caught and unmasked, and it is the guy from the paper mill, the visitor who brought the scroll.

and apparently killed the boss there and the white flag warrior who captures him says poisonous wasp you killed the paper mills boss the white flag leader tries to interrogate him he's like why did you kill the boss but the stranger doesn't answer and said he tries to fight his way out of the situation and he gets killed so no answers there.

They'll refer back to him, I believe, as wasp. So apparently poisonous wasp wasn't profanity. It was like, that's just his name, he's poisonous wasp. Yeah. Okay, narrator goes on to say, in the sixth of the new era, drought struck. Bandits abounded. The living was difficult. Starvation caused cannibalism. Those still strong enough were busy digging up graves. Thirteen royal tombs in Wei Ying were dug up in one night.

General Ping Nam's tomb in Butterfly Valley was rumored to be full of treasures. Ah, okay, so there's a grave full of treasures. And we cut to a spooky scene of workers out in the middle of the night, swinging pickaxes in a grove of trees by yellow lamplight, and suddenly they stop digging. One of the workers asks what's wrong, another one says it seems like they're being watched.

then a lamp swings from a branch and these patterns of light and shadow rock back and forth in the tree canopy while the workers are watching, almost like they are expecting something to come down at them from above. And there's this whispering wind, the atmosphere in the scene is so cool. And after listening for a moment, the workers start digging again, but in the foreground we see a single black butterfly flutters down from the sky and it lands softly on the bark of a tree branch.

Then you pan to tree limbs directly over the worker's heads to reveal the branches are covered in butterflies normally that wouldn't seem so menacing here it really does there these very effective close-ups of the wings flexing and the spiral shaped proboscis like unfurling and catching the light.

And so just when the workers strike a hard surface of the dig site suddenly the butterflies explode with activity, swarming all around the men, the men scream in pain, they're terrified they fall to the ground somehow the butterflies are killing them. And again like it's effectively done the the animals attack element of this film is.

is on the whole more believable than most of the other owl animals attack sort of films that we've talked about in the past, like far more terrifying than frogs. Yes, agree. Also, there was a green fireball in the scene. I don't know what that means.

All right, so amid all these hard times and bad things going on, we finally see a meeting of multiple tin-clan warriors. So the white flag warriors meet with warriors dressed all in red. I guess these are the red flag warriors. They're gathering on a cliff on a misty mountain slope.

The red flag gang is led by a woman named Number 10. The white flag gang is led by a man named Number 3. Number 3 says their boss has been acting very strange since he acquired the 12 districts. I guess that means he gained power over 12 territories.

I don't think this information is important, but just to give you a flavor of like all the complicated like numbers and factional naming that happens here, one of number three says, since the yellow flags ran down the pangs, the tin clan is the third most powerful of the 72, since then boss has quietened.

Yeah, it does, again, part of it is the fact that the subtitles are a little bit confusing. It may not be the case if you're watching it as part of the intended original audience, but yeah, a lot of this feels like maybe we could have cut this and maybe simplified it a little bit because it's not all going to be essential once we get into the second half of the picture.

But the red flag leader and the white flag leader discuss it. They talk about how they think Boston is trying to gain repute. And there's a vendetta among the 72, I guess the 72, what was it called, smoke trails?

Yeah, that I guess are different, different gangs arising in this new, new era. And so the fights between them cannot be solved. And their boss, the boss of their gangs is trying to look good, I guess, trying to trying to get repute.

Yeah. Just a great deal of martial arts gang drama going on. Yeah. And then, done, done, done. Suddenly, heavy music sting, heavy bass, and the boss is here. The boss pops up. This is the first time I think we've seen Tinfung. He's also got another guy with him. They sort of jump out from behind a rock, and everybody's like, boss!

And oh boy, Tinfung, the boss has magnificent hair. He's standing with one leg up on a kind of pulpit of rock on the mountainside overlooking the gang members. Underneath him stands some kind of lieutenant that we later find out is named Big Eyed, who's wearing like pink robes and a cape. Tinfung himself is wearing a cape or a cloak and this like cool black outfit with kind of a V-neck.

He's just got rock star hair. He looks really cool and stern and like, yeah, he would be a good gang boss, I think. Yeah. If you were to ask if we could dig it, I would have to agree. We can. Yeah. Yeah.

But he explains to his fighters, he says, three days ago, Shum Castle sent me a secret letter. The master of Shum Castle and I only met once five years ago, yet he's asking for my help. An unusual event occurred at the castle recently. They say, what event? And the boss says, butterflies, baffle books all around.

Now we have a call to adventure here. We have the invite to the Spooky Castle. That's right. Then specifically, this is another one where I would guess that the original line is delivered in a very hard-hitting fashion, but the way it's phrased in the subtitles doesn't quite capture it. The sentence that he speaks is, they found butterflies which kill in the castle.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, clearly it's better in the original language, but that's what we get via subtitles. But here we get like a cut to an extreme close-up of a butterfly head, the heavy drumming sound I mentioned earlier, and it's laying that groundwork. It's making butterflies scary.

So the boss says, I'm going to go to the castle. I need the white flags and the red flags to go ahead and like set up checkpoints on the paths around the castle to surround the castle and monitor who comes and goes ahead of time. And I'll be there in three days.

Meanwhile, just to emphasize again, like how cool a lot of the setting this are here, the landscape around Boston while he's giving the speech is just live it like there are jagged rocks everywhere. The earth is belching out these clouds of fog and there is just a steady rumbling sound under everything like there's maybe a volcano erupting in the distance or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, also Tinfung sends his lieutenant big-eyed to the castle ahead of time. They sneak into the castle, find out what's going on. So big-eyed says, all right, boss. And he goes to do that. But next we follow Tinfung on the road, traveling alone, apparently in disguise, in a hood and cloak. There are a lot of disguises in this movie.

But he's walking along a path in the country and then he suddenly stops and calls out. You've been following me for two days. Come on out. And so whoever he saw he do does come out and it's green shadow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First green shadow scene. Yeah. And she's just instantly delightful.

So, Green Shadow swings through the air, crosses the path in front of him, then appears dangling from a rope. Green Shadow is a young woman dressed in forest green robes. She is kind of a cross between Spiderman and Predator. So, like the Predator, she uses the trees. You know, she swings from branch to branch.

But like Spider-Man, she's kind of a web slinger, like she swings from wires and ropes and zips around on them. But also she's just so positive, like Green Shadow has a really friendly and exuberant personality, and she always knows something that other people don't. Yeah, yeah. She's on top of the situation, and she's here for a good time. Also, in this scene, I don't know if Tin Fung is just, he happens to be crushing a butterfly in his fist.

But he gets around asking Green Shadow, why are you following me? And she says, I've always been interested in other secrets. Yeah, we can tell Green Shadow. You know everybody's secrets before. Yeah, you clearly are nosy. Now, they appear to have some kind of past, like they know each other. It's not really fully explained, but I don't know if they've been enemies in the past or allies, but they know each other somehow. I don't know if you caught any detail on that, I missed, Rob.

Now I just kind of picked up like maybe it's like a professional thing. You know, it's like, well, of course I know green shadow. Everybody's heard about the exploits of green shadow. And of course, Feng is the boss. So everybody knows who Feng is. But we do know she's not one of the 72 factions that are fighting because green shadow warns him. She says, many amongst the 72 are coming for you. He said, boss 10 says, they'll all end up the same. Green shadow says, I'm not amongst the 72. So I should be the exception.

So, Green Shadow offers to help him. At first, he's going to stand offish, but she reveals she knows a lot. She knows what's going on. She knows he's going to the Shoom Castle. She knows what happened at the Bar Bridge paper mill. She knows about the murder and the eight pages of Fong's memoirs. She reveals that she knows about the killer butterflies, since they are mentioned in the memoirs that the guy was trying to get published at this paper mill.

Tim Fung is like, you believe in Fung's memoirs. And she says, yeah, he actually knows a lot. And Tim reveals his anti-scholar bias here. He's like, it's easy for scholars to talk. But there's a great difference between writing and fighting.

Yeah, and this will come up time and time again. Good point. So, Tim isn't going to trust Vong, but then Green Shadow makes a good point. She's like, at least he's not amongst the 72. So, you know, Tim knows he's not one of the enemies that's coming for him. So they agree to go to Shum Castle together.

Just as he ordered, Tenfung's gang is already there ahead of him, and they report that there has been nary a peep from the castle. No lights, no smoke. It's like there's no one there. And Big Eyed, the lieutenant who was sent ahead ahead of time to investigate the castle and report back, nobody's heard anything from him. So they go inside.

Inside the castle walls, at first everything appears deserted. The courtyard is kind of barren. It's the sandy rectangle of earth with no signs of life. It's almost even like a lot of the, like all the furniture has been removed from the castle. It's just empty. And Tim Fung's men.

They scour the grounds. They run along the battlements at the top of the walls. They run in and out of the buildings. Timfung himself wanders into one room where a massive shape of some sort is hidden underneath a curtain. He pulls the curtain away to reveal a demonic statue. It seems to be some kind of malevolent predatory or dragonlike figure. It's got real like pazuzu statue from the Exorcist energy.

Yeah, it definitely has more of the vibe of a European or American gothic castle set as opposed to a really ornate Chinese dragon. Because it is obviously set, and we'll see it later when it, of course, explodes. Because you can tell, this was made to blow up.

This thing's going to blow up and crash at some point and it will in this particular fashion. But yeah, this scene and all the other, again, the director just does a great job establishing location. You know where you are in the castle, and especially as we begin to add on different sections of it.

I agree. As an aside, I feel like that is a really important and underappreciated skill in filmmaking, underappreciated by a lot of audiences. The importance of a director making you, using film to make you understand and feel a setting. You know, there's some filmmakers who are really good at this.

I would pull out like the Coen brothers are really good at making you like understand the feeling of a room where the scene is taking place. Of course, a lot of good directors are able to do this, but a common feature of bad filmmaking is that like scenes are taking place in a setting where you don't feel like you understand where you are. Right. And this is the opposite as we're saying that the settings are really well established. You feel them.

Yeah, and it's effortless and it doesn't require language at all. So it's one of those things that the subtitles don't get in the way of that because it's speaking directly to you, no matter what your native tongue is. Right. But anyway, the white flag fighters come to tin foam to inform him that they have found Big Eyed. Big Eyed is dead. His body lying beside a pond in the courtyard. His skin is covered in scorch marks and black smudges. And inside his clenched fist is a butterfly.

Of course, Tinfung is furious at this to find his lieutenant dead. Just then, he and Green Shadow finally meet someone who appears to be an inhabitant of the castle. It's a young woman holding a lantern. Tinfung runs up to where it tries to question her, but she seems either unable or unwilling to speak, and she also seems afraid of him.

And they wonder why Tynfung is like, why is she carrying a lantern in the daytime? But Green Shadow, who again, always seems to be mentally one step ahead, says it's because she came from underground. Green Shadow's right, they rush around the corner to find a cellar door propped open. And then the young woman with the lantern leads Tynfung and Green Shadow down the stairs into an underground tunnel, where they meet the master of the castle. It is Master Shum.

He's very glad they've come and he escorts them deeper into the rocky catacombs where they find a kind of improvised living space illuminated by torchlight. So down in the space is Master Shum. There is the girl with the lantern whose name we learn is Chi.

and there is the Madam of the Castle, Madam Shomer, Lady Shomer. Also, there is another guest who has arrived. It is the scholar, Phong, remember him from earlier. He was the narrator. This is the alleged author of the eight pages of memoir from the incident at the Papermill.

And as we could expect, there is tension between Tin Fong and Fong. Boston does not trust him. He says, although your memoirs have some repute, a scholar like you can only get in the way and make things worse. He's not a fan of these nerdy scholars. But Master Shum says, hey, he needs Fong here. He invited him here to chronicle the events that have happened and to make an accurate report of what's going on at the castle, to serve as a warning to others.

Alright, so already, you know, we've got this strong mystery gothic plot developing here. Mysterious castle, strange events, people with diverse backgrounds have been invited to witness what is unfolding there.

Here, Master Shum explains the backstory, and we see it reenacted as he tells it. He says, earlier this year, on the fifth day of the fifth month, it was a day to commemorate his ancestor's death. And so we see a sort of temple shrine within the castle grounds. And there are offerings. There's like a roasted chicken and a pig's head and a fish being offered up, I guess, in honor of his ancestor.

And the first strange occurrence here is that during the celebration a servant finds a reeking display in one of the rooms of the castle. It looks like some kind of dead tropical bird hanging upside down with its feathers covered in blood and it has a butterfly in its beak. Second vent is one night, a lady shum is weaving in her chambers and is bitten so that blood is drawn, but she's bitten by a butterfly that lands on her neck and then on her hand.

After this, the servants decide the castle is cursed. They start running away, leaving the Shum family by themselves. One day Master Shum finds that masses of butterflies are swarming around the outside of the windows and the butterflies attack. They kill his last loyal servant as Master Shum himself barely escapes with his life into the underground tunnels. So now it appears to be just Shum, Lady Shum, and she living down there in the tunnels. Everybody else is dead or has fled the castle.

And this is a great set, like the more details we get the more amazing it is. It's like they're living underneath the gothic castle in this complex that it seems just increasingly, I mean it's expressly described as a labyrinth later on.

with lots of confusing twists and secret passages. So just great setting. Agree. And I love the rooms they find in these passageways later on. But we also get some backstory about the third person there, about Chi, the servant. Lady Shum explains that she found her alone while traveling away from the castle years ago, that she was deaf and mute. So Lady Shum brought Chi back to the castle with her to live there and serve as her personal maid.

that we met all characters here now. Later that night, Fawn the Scholar and Master Shum have a conversation in Master Shum's secret meditation chamber where he's got a go board set up, I think. Yeah, I guess it's supposed to be like a study. I think we might more realistically think of it as his secret study.

Yeah. So Fong says, why did you bring me here? And Shum says, do you believe in ghosts? Fong takes a diplomatic view that I think could be read multiple different ways. He says, ghosts exist if you believe in them, otherwise they don't. And I feel like there are a few different ways you could take that. I don't know how you read it, Rob.

I mean, I took it to be as long as a no-nonsense kind of guy. But realizes that belief in ghosts is a powerful thing, even if ghosts don't exist. Yeah, yeah. That's sort of how I took it, too. But then I also wondered if, well, maybe he means ghosts do exist and have power, but only over those that believe in them. But I don't know. Yeah, either way, it works. Anyway, Master Shum starts talking about the anniversary of the death of his father.

And there is a there was a funny moment here with like the way the subtitles work with like the timing. Master Shum says he's killed by butterflies 10 years ago and then there's a music sting and fallen bolts up from his chair. But then Master Shum says kind of sadly that his father didn't believe in ghosts.

And for this reason, he had no worries about trying to dig up the buried treasures of the general of pinon or general pinon. I think this is maybe the same tomb we saw being dug up by people earlier in the movie. I don't know if it was supposed to be a depiction of the same scene, but people digging for treasure in a general's tomb, though the general's name appeared to be spelled differently. Yeah, it has to be the same, right? Yeah.

A master shim says his father lived peacefully for ten years after this act of grave robbing, but then one day ten years later was attacked by a swarm of killer butterflies. They assaulted the castle in the form of a cloud and descended to slaughter many men that day, and in the reenactment we see butterflies circling the towers and the castle walls. They leave soldiers and servants lying bloody in the courtyard. There are a lot of these sickening close-ups of butterflies crawling over dead men.

And then another line where I think it's not supposed to be funny, but something gets lost in the subtitle. Fong says, don't worry over it. Let's work out together. Yeah, the subtitles are again generally confusing in places, but rarely like actually goofy. This is I think maybe the one real exception and I had a nice hearty laugh about it. I think what it must mean is let's work it out together. I think he's saying like we will solve the problem. That's how I took it.

Right. Yeah, that's clearly what they meant. But I also, I couldn't help but then imagine like, yeah, let's go work out. Let's hit the weights. Yeah. Some of these characters might work out together, but I don't think it would be fun who would do it. He does not even lift.

Okay, meanwhile, we get a report to Tinfung about big-eyed and how he died. They say that his wounds are made of numerous tiny holes and his skin is swollen, all symptoms of poison. And in a line that will be repeated by many characters, many times throughout the film, someone says, are there really killer butterflies? It's sort of unanswered. It seems like maybe there are.

There's some general creepy stalking around in the tunnels in the dark who's following who I don't always know but green shadow is in the mix here somewhere.

Yeah, kind of the Scooby-Doo section of the film. There's a lot of creepin' around. Who's creepin'? You're not really entirely sure. But hopefully, masks will be pulled off later on. Oh boy, will they? So suddenly, the sneaking around is interrupted by a scream. One of Tenfong's white flag soldiers is found lifeless on the ground up above, killed in the same way as Big Eyed, I guess by the butterflies. They're really piling on the butterfly deaths at this point.

So, boss Tim, he comes up with a solution. Tim Fung gets his warriors together and he says, cover the castle in nets. So surely these nets will prevent any butterflies from getting in. Is that going to work? Is it going to work? Of course not. But will it look cool? He bet it will. They're really just like stacking butterfly murders every couple minutes at this point.

between the flashbacks and what's happening in the present. So we also see the red flags out hunting as it's mostly like the white flag warriors who are hanging out at the castle with with Boston. We see the red flags out hunting for butterflies with handheld nets and they remark that there is not a single butterfly to be found in a 20 mile radius. Where could the killer insects be hiding?

But here we're about to get into some investigation scenes. And just a warning, if you want to go into this movie without any of the surprises spoiled, we're about to spoil things as we go along. So be forewarned. Inside at night, Fong the Scholar and Green Shadow meet in one of the tunnels to discuss the castle. They conclude that there has to be a secret entrance to the underground labyrinth, but they cannot find the door, even though they've both been looking for it.

So while they go looking around, they come across a hidden room with these hanging screens covered in thousands of dead butterfly specimens. It's like a lepidopteri collection. Now this is highly suspicious. Now we seem to be getting somewhere with the butterfly mystery.

Right, so Fong and Green Shadow discuss whose work the collection could be. Possibly the servant Chi? They note that they both thought that Chi had been with them separately at the time the white flag soldier was found killed the previous night. So how could Chi have been in two places at once? Hmm, we'll come back to that.

But oh no! Next, Master Shum is attacked by butterflies inside his meditation room. But he's locked inside the room so they cannot go in and help him. The door is locked from the inside, and everybody is watching through a grate in the door as he is killed by a swarm of butterflies. Eventually they are able to blast the doors open with gunpowder, but it's too late. Master Shum lies dead on the floor, surrounded by pieces from his go board.

Oh boy, Rob, I know you like a will reading scene, don't you? Yeah, this is where we get the will reading where it's like, oh, he left the will. Should we read it? Should we gather everyone together? Are there agents or individuals out there who don't want us to read the will? Oh, I think that might be the case. So, uh, yeah, ladies show him says master master show left an unusual will. It says, quote, my dear wife, I have a wish left.

Let out the message-carrying pigeon, and in three days' time, Shin, Kwok, and Li will arrive. I have a letter to be read to them. Remember, read it in all three's presence. Remember!

So these new new characters are being introduced. Shin, Kwok, and Li. Who are they? Well, Fong says that it's rumored that 10 years ago, a very knowledgeable hermit lived. Not only was he an excellent martial artist, he was also learned in the human sciences. And he had four students known as the thunders. Now, one of the students, one of the thunders was named Yu, and Yu is now dead. But the other three

are Lee, Shin, and Kwok, and they are the three mentioned in the will. So here we get a summary of the three thunders, courtesy of Fong. Fong says, first of all, Lee. Lee is best at small hand weapons. He is called the Thousand Hands. His attacks are totally unexpected. His expertise is second to none.

Second, we have quack. Quack is also known as magic fire. He, quote, has the most killing power. And here we cut to a raven flying a scream and men lying scorched on the rocks. And apparently he wiped out a sect known as fireball in one night. So there's some indication that quack can like send a bird that that somehow leaves men lying scorched on the earth. How does that work? Who knows?

Finally, there's Shen, who is known as Flying Cloud. Nobody knows what he looks like, and he once went through the Forbidden Palace, they say. I don't know what that means. Do we eventually see Flying Cloud? I'm a little hazy on this. I, you know, I'm confused. There may be something I missed. I totally admit that it may have gone past me, but I don't think Shen actually appears in the film.

Okay. Unless it's like the secret identity of another pre-existing character and that's revealed at some point and I missed it. Okay. I'm glad I'm not alone there. Okay. I don't think so. Okay. The other two we definitely see, though, and they play important parts, especially quack, who I mentioned in the cast.

uh... but they're both really cool so the thunders are on their way and uh... tin foam warns his fighters not to confront the thunders this is a dangerous situation because on one hand you've got ten phones uh... warriors you know they're fighting for power but the thunders are these other extremely date dangerous martial heroes you know these people from the martial world and you put them put them all in the place together there they're gonna fight i think at some point

Boston says two tigers can't exist at the same time.

Now, not discounting other influences, of course, but one can't help but be reminded of John Carpenter's later film, A Big Trouble in Little China, in which we have the four storms who are exceptional martial artists, slash sorcerers who have all sorts of crazy weapons and abilities. And here we have the three thunders. So I can't help but wonder if this had any influence on the ultimate form of that film.

Well, I think I read somewhere that the same director's other film, Zoo Warriors and the Magic Mountain, was a major influence on Big Trouble. All right, we'll have to come back to Zoo Warriors. It just sounds too enticing. But the film goes a great length to express, and it's good to hammer home here, that this is a dangerous situation having Boston and the Thunder is in the same place, because these are rivals. They are likely to come into conflict.

Now, next there's a scene where Fong the scholar questions Chi, the servant at the castle. He asks her about the Lepidopteri room with all the butterfly specimens, and she confirms that it is Master Shum's room. And then Fong asks her why there are two Chi's because, you know, remember, he and Green Shadow both were with Chi in different places at the same time. Chi acts frightened by this question and tries to run away, but Chi leads Fong to a different hidden room.

a strange room that is revealed to be something like a cross between an arsenal and an alchemist's lab. It's full of these weird, ancient scientific instruments, things that look like weapons and containers of powders and these wooden planks with burn marks on them, almost like explosives or incendiaries have been tested here.

And so here, Fong meets with Green Shadow. They explore the room and they discuss the sort of a principle of like gunpowder, I think being explored here. They discuss a sort of secret history of gunpowder weapons, including a legendary secret weapon known as the fire gun. So it's a question, I think, like, was the owner of this room trying to create a like secret gunpowder weapon?

You know, it's again kind of interesting synchronicity here because for our crossbow episodes that aired earlier this week, I was reading, you know, a great deal and need them about.

about gunpowder innovations and gunpowder weaponry in ancient China, many of which used crossbow or crossbow related elements. And, you know, none of what we see in this film here even really captures like the weird variety of gunpowder based weaponry that was developed in China over the centuries. It's pretty pretty amazing stuff.

Now next, we're going to meet some of the thunders. They don't arrive at the castle conventionally, because like the white flag warriors are sort of outside awaiting the arrival of the thunders. Instead, we see the thunders meeting each other in secret already underneath the castle. They're in the tunnels beneath the castle.

The very cool creepy scene where Lee and Kwok here appear in shadow wearing hoods and cloaks at first so their faces are hidden in darkness. At first they're almost even a little suspicious of each other. They say why did Master Shum invite them to the castle early? They say Shin used to be the first to come here. Why isn't he here yet?

But then suddenly, their little rendezvous is interrupted by discovering that Green Shadow is there. Green Shadow's spying on them. Again, always one step ahead. And they try to throw weapons at her and stuff, but she's too quick. They can't catch it. And so here, eventually, all of the characters meet one another. We get the full all-cast introduction. And the thunder is kind of up to speed on what has happened so far at the castle.

But they're still awaiting for Shin the third thunder to arrive so that the letter can be read. And more characters ask the same question that keeps coming up. Do killer butterflies really exist? The thunders discuss this in secret between each other. They're very wary of the others. Lee and Kwok, they say that anyone who is in our friend is our enemy, and these people don't seem to be friends.

Yeah, a lot of distrust here, but it would also seem like, well, we finally have all of the characters in play that are going to be in play. You might well think this, but you would also seemingly be wrong because there are more mysterious individuals who are going to show up and impact the plot.

But before the last really important character shows up, we get a few more scenes of Green Shadow and Fong, our two main investigators working out what's going on here. First of all, it's funny because Fong is just out for a walk and Green Shadow does wire stunts, just dropping in on him while nothing is going on.

So they talk about killer butterflies, but then Fong and Green Shadow sort of compare notes. They say, you know, the thunder seemed to know the castle well, and they were close with Master Shum. Why didn't he call them for help initially? Why did he call boss 10 instead of the thunders?

You know, coming back to where you said about green shadow, it really does feel like green shadow has not just walked down a hallway or just strolled from point A to point B in a very long time. It's always on wires. Yes. I love it. She's living that wire life, you know, and also more plot updates. Remember those eight pages of Fong's memoirs from the paper mill? Well, 10 Fong shows them to Fong and Fong confirms. Yeah.

The guy at the paper mill was right. I did not write this. This is not mine. Somebody is forging works in my name. Fong reasons from this because the pages of his memoirs are stories about killer butterfly attacks. He says there must be someone trying to use my name to spread the rumor of killer butterflies.

I wonder if that same person is controlling the butterflies. And then, oh, whoa, things totally do a major shift. Once again, we get our first slasher movie scene, basically. Madam Shum in her chambers at night is attacked by this film's Jason Voorhees, the Armored Warrior. Rob, what do you want to say about the Armored Warrior and the scene?

Oh, the armored war is just absolutely terrifying. Just, you know, black armor seemingly just impossible to hurt. You can't name him or stop him. Just a strong proto slasher vibe here. And he eventually busts out. A lot of his action is just more like punches and grabs and throws.

And then some like some sort of like more minor cloth type stuff, but he also has this other strange weapon that he'll he'll bust out that looks kind of like a cross between a lacrosse stick and a deep fryer basket only, you know, more deadly looking and it seems to slash and shred when it comes into contact with human flesh.

I was going to compare his weapon to the goat foot lever that we talked about in the Crossbow episode. It's like, it's a claw hook weapon that's got like two toes on it. But yeah, this rough material, almost like barbed wire strung between the two toes.

Yeah, I looked around a little bit. I couldn't find anybody talking about this and comparing it to known weapons. So I don't know if it actually has anything like a real world analog. If it has something, it's supposed to be inspired by something to do with butterflies. I don't know. I'm assuming for now that it's just purely a creation of fantasy, but it's very effective.

But the scene is interesting because it starts as like, it's like a slasher horror scene. This, you know, this monstrous warrior attacks Lady Shum in her chamber. She escapes. The fighters get there in time to defend her and chase this warrior off. But then there's like a series of awesome fight scenes. So it's like Tin Fung versus the armored warrior and

Tim Fong is cool. We finally see him in action. He fights with this another strange weapon. It's like a very short baton. Do you know what this would be called, Rob? I'm not sure. Now, does this baton shoot things or am I thinking this is just a straight up baton? I don't know. There are some things that shoot things. I don't remember if his shoots things.

Yeah, the fighting is again kind of mind melting and there are a number of unique weapons being utilized. Pure fantasy action here. But then there's also green shadow versus armored warrior and she uses wires in her fighting of him. But eventually the armored warrior escapes into the night. He gets away so they don't get to catch him. They don't get to unmask him or know the identity of the killer.

Now madam shum thinks she knows the identity of the killer she thinks it must be the third thunder who hasn't arrived yet shin and she's like maybe he wants to get to the letter or the will that master shum left before everybody else does.

But, uh, hey, remember that thing about how, uh, Boston was saying, you know, two, two tigers can't exist at the same time. We see some real conflict breaking out because the red flags and the white flags end up fighting with the thunders and the thunders just mess them up. There's like a scene where the thunders attack the red flags in the forest and are just like chopping their arms off and stuff and they fight with the white flags. The white flags are no match either.

Yeah, the fenders are not to be messed with. You're gonna get shredded, you're gonna get blown up, you're gonna get caught on fire.

But then later the two thunders we see, they're running around in the tunnels underneath the castle. And this is Lee and Kwok. And they catch sight of the armored killer. So they see him and they're like, hey, and they chase after him in the dark. And this leads to the butterfly room, the one with all the butterfly specimens mounted on screens and another amazing fight scene. So there is an attack where the armored warrior

like tries to attack the thunders by throwing I guess the poison butterflies at them and the thousand hand thunder Lee intercepts the butterflies with darts and it's this awesome scary fight scene in tight quarters. I thought this was a really good one again the the armored warrior whose identity is hidden he's using the strange claw hook weapon

It's very visceral and scary and up close and personal. And there's one moment where you think Lee has won because like the armored warrior goes down, but then he suddenly pops back up and he is victorious. He kills Lee by like ramming his head into a clay pot.

This is a great kill sequence. And it's one of these where, like, the way we describe it, like, OK, puts him in a headlock, rams his head into a pot. That doesn't sound as impressive. But the way that it's shot, it's very thrilling and feels just very viscerally violent, even though it's not super bloody or anything.

Okay, next we get some big reveals. Like we said, there are a lot of twists that come in this movie. So next we follow Chi in the underground tunnel by herself. Remember, she's the servant who carries the lantern and she wanders with her lantern wearing a mask over the bottom of her face. What's she doing? Oh, suddenly we see her walking not just through the tunnels, but she's walking into a cavern like an opening in the tunnels where she's surrounded by butterflies.

and yet she's not afraid of them. They don't seem to be harming her. She kneels beside an underground pool and then she puts something in the water and makes it foam and sizzle and it produces these white fumes. The butterflies seem like affected by the fumes. Rob, what did you, did it seem almost kind of like the butterflies were like boiling up out of the water or something?

I guess, yeah, this was one of the moments where I'm kind of piecing it together, but I'm blaming the subtitles for my lack of a pure understanding of what we're dealing with here. Because again, so many things in the film just make sense on a visual level. You don't need the subtitles to explain what's happening, but there's some sort of magical potion-based explanation here, and we're not getting all of it.

I mean, I think I'm following what's happening. I could be making mistakes, but essentially here, Chi is caught. Green shadow and the scholar following up here, they have been watching her and they reveal, they say, we know you're not Chi. You are Madam Shum disguised as Chi. That's why there were two Chi's. There's the real Chi and then Madam Shum has a Chi costume that she puts on and she hides part of her face to pretend to be her.

They say that she has, quote, butterfly controlling medicine and that Lady Shum has discovered the art of controlling butterflies. Apparently, Fong talks about it almost like the art of controlling butterflies is something that is known to have been known in the past, but was lost and now has been rediscovered. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Okay. It's all making sense now.

So, green shadow and Fong here are confronting her. They're like, now you're going to tell us everything that's going on because we know you're in on it. But they're interrupted by the armored warrior in the black armor, the mask, the weapon. He comes out and Madam Shum is killed and the armored warrior escapes. And we see butterflies crawling over Lady Shum's dead body as if to mourn it. And then later,

the armored warrior comes back and caresses Lady Shum's body as well. Here's the scene with the killer reveal, the killer is unmasked, and it is Master Shum himself, the master of the castle. He's not dead after all. And he's confronted by Fong alone this time, who's put all the pieces together.

He says that Master Shum is actually you. Remember when they were describing the thunders? There are three thunders still living, but one of the thunders was already dead. Well, it turns out that that thunder was you and he wasn't dead. It's Shum, the master of the castle. So this is a plan of the thunders many years in the making to create secret weapons here at the castle to protect the secret of the weapons. And now you must be doing some new stage of the plan.

Okay, I'm buying all of that, but I still don't know why we invited people to the castle. I don't know why the secret will. I feel like there's a lot of stuff that I can't quite stitch together. Oh, no, no, no. I think I understand it. So I asked you to take me. Master Shum and Madam Shum here. They used killer butterflies, first of all, to get rid of all the spies in the castle because there were spies here sent by the other thunders to keep track of you. Okay.

So they drive all the spies out with butterflies that either killed them or made them flee. And then they keep using the butterflies in attacks all around to create a confusion. Then Shum created the false memoirs of fongs to spread stories about the killer butterflies, killed the paper mill owner when he saw through it. The whole point of this was to get the other martial heroes, to get tinfong and green shadow to the castle.

to make them fight with the thunders, because you want to, I think, rule over everything. He wants to be in charge, so he wants all the other martial heroes to get together into a tight space, to be in the same place, and have to fight each other, just like what happened when we heard in the backstory when all the martial heroes fought each other and wiped each other out.

Okay, he wants to be the last one standing. Okay, so everything is going according to plan here. It's about getting all these great warriors together, having them destroy each other so that he can rule over everyone instead. Okay. Yeah, that's right. All right. I could, again, I feel like I would have been on top of it had the subtitles been just a little tighter, but I'm there now.

I mean, it is a complicated plot, but I think it's a good twist. And so Shum basically admits, yep, Fong, you figured it out, but men who know too much cannot live. So he reveals his claw weapon, and he's going to kill Fong. There's like a chase, and then all kinds of different fighting happens. Shum ends up killing Chi, the actual servant.

Shum then fights green shadow. Fong watches as Shum fights green shadow. He's helpless. He's not a fighter. He can't intervene. And then Tin Fong shows up and he gets involved in the fight. Again, it's like trading off between the different heroes fighting the armored warrior. But Shum once again escapes into a tunnel.

I have to drive home here that, you know, I'm not a like a Hong Kong action, completeist or anything. There are a number of like very prestigious Hong Kong action films that I haven't seen. So I can't like speak universally in all of this, but all of this action is just blistering. It's just very like technically proficient, you know, well shot, inventive is just you never know what's going to happen next. And so even though you get just multiple fights and different pair ups, everything is just captivating.

And i really love that the different heroes have their different like fighting styles so when they trade off fighting the villain, there there's a lot of variety in the fight scenes it's not just like a same kind of fighting over and over you get green shadow with her like wire stuff you get boston with his little baton, you get of course the you know the armored warrior with his scary visceral kind of fighting with the claw weapon and then of course you get the thunder is so.

After Shum escapes, Fong says this is the terrible situation. This is going to turn into an all-out war between Tinfung and the remaining Thunder. So Fong leaves the castle at dawn to avoid the battle. And then we see the final battle going on. Again, two Tigers can't exist at the same time.

So we've got 10 versus the magic fire thunder. He's the one left alive. The armored warrior returns and it's a three-way fight. They're sort of like all trying to kill each other. They end up, there's like an explosion. I think it's when the, the, the statue, the demonic statue explodes. They, the fighters fall through the floor into the catacombs below.

magic fire is pinned by a falling pillar. Then you and magic fire have this like conversation. You says, you know, I was left here to protect the secret gun. Why did you other thunder since spies to report on me? And you know, they're like hashing out their grievances and you is giving a speech as the victorious villain. But meanwhile, Boston sneaks up on you. And as he does a maniacal laugh, Boston springs from cover and there's another fight again.

There's some ground grappling, there's some sliding along on wires, and then finally, the villain is defeated when Tim slams his head into a rock face while running down the length of a wire.

Yeah, kind of like a hyper accelerated zip line death sequence that if I when I explain it like that, it doesn't really sound like like you probably can't picture it. But within the context of this ridiculously elaborate three way fight scene, it's highly effective.

Oh, but it's not over because magic fire is still alive. Even though he's like trapped under a pillar, he sends his killer bird after 10. And you don't know what the bird's going to do. It's just like a bird flying around chasing boss 10. What's going to happen? Well, you think green shadow comes to the rescue. She's here to save 10. She flies through on a wire. She's going to save the day, but then oh, the most devastating ending. Do you want to explain Rob?

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to say that the stunningly nihilistic ending came out of nowhere because issues and subtitles aside, it does seem like we were ratcheting up to it. Like there's this sequence when the scholars leaving where hang and phone have this last little conversation and phone is like, I hope you win. And it feels very stark and

in the dark. And we end up flashing back to that here in a bit. But yeah, so Green Shadow zips into the scene with her general optimism. And she goes and catches the bird in mid-air. And the bird explodes like a hand grenade, just blowing Green Shadow up like there's no way she survives this. Like just killed instantly.

And, you know, Fung is like, like, no. And then it comes flying right at Fung's face and explodes in his face, freeze frame. And that's pretty much the end. Yeah. And I was like, wow, like that was just jaw dropping. Because again, with this feels like a major Wuxia subversion here, like this is not our hero's conquering evil or it's not a, you know, the sort of tropes that you would

expect to encounter in a film like this. No, this is like all of our heroes are dead except for the scholar who only survived because he left ahead of the cataclysmic final battle. But there is a symmetry like it talked about in the backstory with the narration at the very beginning, the movie seems to end with all of the martial heroes have killed each other. They're all gone now and the only one left is the chronicler to tell the story.

Yeah, so it really, really packs a punch. And again, just a fitting way to cap all of this just, you know, essentially like high-tech fantasy martial arts that's happening here and just have this just again, just very nihilistic ending where everybody dies. But again, like I say, it doesn't, they were clearly building up to this in many ways. So it doesn't feel forced in any fashion either.

So in the end, I'd give a big thumbs up to the butterfly murders. It is not only its bonkers premise of killer butterflies. It is that, but it is so much else. It just gives you so much to work with, and it keeps you guessing.

Yeah, absolutely. So I highly recommend this one. And I hope it gets a better release at some point in the future. It would be great. But on the other hand, I didn't see any indication that that's coming. So I would say don't waste time. If this interests you, go watch it in whatever format you can find it in, because it's worth the journey.

All right, well that's it for this episode of Weird House Cinema. We're going to go and close out, but a reminder that we're primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film here on the Weird House Cinema.

If you want to see a list of all the movies we've covered over the years, go to letterbox.com. It's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D.com. Our username is Weird House, and we have a list of all the movies, and sometimes a peek ahead at what's to come. If you would like to follow us on social media, well, we're in the usual places as stuff to blow your mind. On Instagram, we are STBYM podcast, and that's worth following for Weird House fans because currently our social media crew

is putting up a little video kind of like teaser of the film. So you can quickly go there and get maybe a taste of the trailer in addition to the trailer audio that you'll hear in the actual episode. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Pazway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

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