Drama Review: Butterflied Lover

Butterflied Lover (风月变)

Main Cast & Synopsis

“Butterflied Lover” is inspired by the tragic Chinese romance legend, The Butterfly Lover, a story about two lovers who will try to overcome all obstacles to remain together. Ling Chang Feng (Zhao Yi Qin) is the general of the Ning Cheng Department and is still deeply in love with his wife, Tang Qian Yue (Lu Xiao Yu), after three years. On New Year’s Eve, the two were strolling in the streets when the “madmen” associated with the Yi Lan Clan attacked the city. Tang Qian Yue is injured, and her mysterious past catches up to her as she tries to hide her identity. Ling Chang Feng will do all that he can to protect Tang Qian Yue while an investigation is conducted into that frightful evening.

Zhao Yi Qin, was recently buzzing from the short web drama, “Provoke.” He portrays Ling Chang Feng, the commander of the Ning Cheng Department. He has lived alone since he was young and decided to take in the lost Tang Qian Yue. Through their time together, the two develop a mutually passionate relationship. Although Ling Chang Feng patriotically serves his country and his Emperor, he will do everything he can to protect his wife, who is part of the Yi Lan Clan.

Lu Xiao Yao, the leading woman from “Qing Qing Zi Jin,” portrays Tang Qian Yue, Ling Chang Feng’s wife from the Yi Lan Clan’s Butterfly Legion. Tang Qian Yue cannot recall her past memories and her first recollection of forming any memories starts with Ling Chang Feng rescuing her, and has been following him since their first encounter. Without memories of her past or knowledge of how to navigate the world, Ling Chang Feng had to slowly teach her how to live like a normal human.

Character Breakdown

Questions and Answers: Plot of “Butterflied Lover”

heavy spoilers ahead

How does Tang Qian Yue and Ling Chang Feng meet?

Tang Qian Yue and Ling Chang Feng first met in Dong Qian Village when Ling Chang Feng went to investigate the bandit massacre incident. Tang Qian Yue was sitting alone amongst a pile of bodies when Ling Chang Feng saved her.

How is Tang Qian Yue related to the “madmen”?

Tang Qian Yue is suspected to be part of the Butterfly Legion that is the Yi Lan Clan that has gone extinct. They are known to be skilled in poison that can bewitch people. The most powerful poison is called the butterfly poison. Once infected, the person will act like a “madman” or a beast. These individuals has a butterfly tattoo on their collarbone.

How did Tang Qian Yue keep her identity hidden from Ling Chang Feng?

Before becoming Ling Chang Feng’s wife, Tang Qian Yue coincidentally meets Madame Yue, who helps her get rid of the butterfly poison through the use of the black peony flower. After seven days of pain, Tang Qian Yue returns and is able to suppress the butterfly poison with follow-up maintenance from Madame Yue.

How often do we see Hu Dan Dan and Yang Ze appear?

So far, Hu Dan Dan and Yang Ze has appeared 3 times:

• Episode 4 @ 12:30
• Episode 6 @ 3:53
• Episode 12 @ 6:45

How does “Butterflied Lover” end?

On New Year’s Eve, the entire Ling family celebrates together. The scene fades, and Tang Qian Yue wakes up to find Ling Chang Feng getting ready to leave, just as he did in episode 1. However, as stated by the director himself, the drama has an open ending. He interprets ‘Butterflied Lover’ as a sad ending, while the screenwriter sees it as a happy ending. Here are my explanations/theories for the ending of ‘Butterflied Lover.’

Sad Ending Version 1: The whole drama is a dream after Tang Qian Yue attacks Ling Chang Feng.

Despite the drama’s attempt to imply a happy ending for both couples in episode 22, many scenes, likely influenced by the director, hinted at a sad ending. In my interpretation, Tang Qian Yue dreamt of all the events that have occurred since episode 1. Tang Qian Yue bites Ling Chang Feng, and he dies in that episode. In episode one, she wakes up in fright and confronts Ling Chang Feng, who assures her that she had a nightmare. We could have concluded here that it was indeed a nightmare, and she foresaw future events and was able to make changes to them, potentially leading to ‘Sad Ending Version 2.’

However, a few incidents in episode 22 suggest that these events we saw unfold never happened. When Tang Qian Yue wakes up in episode 22, she doesn’t see Ling Chang Feng and smiles sadly. As she’s getting ready, both Ling Chang Feng and Ling Si Si apparated into the room. This implies that Tang Qian Yue never got pregnant after Ling Chang Feng died when she bit him. Tang Qian Yue never got a second chance to relive the attack from the Yi Lan Clan and was imagining a happy life with her family.

In episode 7, Tang Qian Yue also said, ‘The beautiful days are destined to turn into memories. It’s time to face reality.’ Though this matches the events of the plot, it can be implied through Tang Qian Yue’s voiceover that she was reminding herself to face reality, which, at that point in time, was after she woke up from the first nightmare.

At the end of episode 22, Tang Qian Yue wakes up again and smiles sadly in the same spot. This ending would make sense alongside its title ‘Butterflied Lover’ and its inspiration from The Butterfly Lover, both implying that the two lovers did not end up happily together. If Tang Qian Yue indeed dreamt about the sequence of events since episode one, we can conclude that Ling Chang Jin didn’t die, as the series of events may differ for his story with Bao Zhu.

Sad Ending Version 2: Tang Qian Yue dreamed of the future and changed the outcome.

If we consider that her first dream was indeed a nightmare and she was able to foresee the future with her dream, what happened throughout the show did occur, and Ling Chang Feng possibly died after the blood transfusion. We weren’t made aware of how much time passed between when Tang Qian Yue gave birth and when she transferred the poison to Ling Chang Feng. But when Tang Qian Yue made her way to the cave, Ling Chang Feng wasn’t in shackles as she had expected to find him. As Madam Yuan mentioned, Tang Qian Yue was one of the special ones that reacted well to the purple peony soup, and not many can survive the pain. Did Ling Chang Feng make it past the seven days? Did he even stay sane as Tang Qian Yue did? If he did, did Ling Chang Feng survive the black peony bloom that occurred before Bao Zhu woke up? Thus, we can only conclude that Tang Qian Yue was holding onto the three-year promise and was expecting him to return, but was in denial. So, the look in her eyes when the chime rang was filled with tears that could be interpreted as disappointment of it not being Ling Chang Feng or relief because no news is good news. However, it still does not confirm if Ling Chang Feng is alive.

Happy Ending: Love prevails all.

If we were to view it from the perspective of a happy ending, we could conclude that Ling Chang Feng did return home after three years, and he was the one who rang the chime. Tang Qian Yue’s tears and smile would then be of relief and happiness at his return. When she woke up again at the end, she smiled with tears in her eyes because she was overjoyed to see him standing there.

Review: Butterflied Lover

“The beautiful days are destined to turn into memories. It’s time to face the reality.”

★★★☆☆ Rating: 3.8/5

Drama Review of “Butterflied Lover”

Butterflied Lover is a drama that’s directed by Zeng Qing Jie and scriptwriter, Zhao Lin. This duo, has brought us a lot of popular short form web dramas in these past couple of years. Such as, “Provoke,” “A Familiar Stranger,” “The Killer Is Also Romantic,” and more. The costumes, sets, and lighting are typical of Mango TV historical dramas, which I find more pleasing to the eyes than Tencent’s short historical web dramas.

The Bad

It’s given that with short dramas, there will be flaws in world-building, arcs, and characters. “Butterflied Lover”‘” is a short web drama that focuses on the romantic aspect of the story with two couples. Our main couple’s love story was already established, as they are already married at the beginning. Instead, we receive flashbacks to their past and how they came together as a couple. The biggest flaw in all four characters was that there wasn’t much depth to them, as their actions revolved around romance. We don’t receive a story behind the Ling family dynamic, but we know there is a lot to the story: the distance between the brothers, their father, the involvement of the Yi Lan Clan, and the loss of their sister. This would build a stronger story behind the main characters, as they’re all part of the Ling family. We were told and given some scenes of tension within the palace with the Ling family, but it wasn’t highlighted. Then we have the Yi Lan Clan and the poison that was brought up as a main plot point to introduce a struggle between both couples, but it didn’t have a resolution. There’s no clear story regarding the special correlation of the Yi Lan Clan and Tang Qian Yue, no solution to the issue of the butterfly curse, or the remaining Yi Lan Clan. These were the main details that were overlooked to focus on the romance.

Apart from those obvious issues due to the lack of time, the ending of “Butterflied Lover” felt rushed to include the love story of Ling Chang Jin and Bao Zhu when Ling Chang Feng and Tang Qian Yue’s story could’ve been fleshed out more. The transferring of blood and poison with both couples felt unoriginal, only resulting in an ending that felt quite open. This leads to an unsatisfactory ending.

The Good

Despite being a short web drama, it holds its ground against other long-form dramas. By no means is it perfect, but so far, we can see that the drama gets straight to the point in setting up the story for our lead characters, introducing side characters that will help build the world setting, delving into the lead couple’s backstory, and establishing the suspense of the Yi Lan Clan and the dynamics of the court.

As a romance-focused drama, the emotions highlighted to portray the initial feelings of falling in love to the pain of losing your loved one were well depicted by Lu Xiao Yu and Zhao Yi Qin. I personally felt that there could have been a better performance from Deng Kai and Wu Ri Li Ge, but their story was cute as well.

A plus we get from the director is including, Hu Dan Dan and Yang Ze, whose characters by no means added depth to the story, but reprise their roles from “The Killer Is Also Romantic.”

Conclusion

While I do feel like my rating was elevated, it was more of a 3.3/5. I think a lot of the extra points had to do with understanding the intentions of the director and screenwriter to create a romance-focused story on two couples and maintaining consistency in the storytelling until the end. We were able to catch onto many of the details that were provided, and there weren’t many scenes that felt irrelevant or unnecessary for the progression of the drama. So, those extra points were more of appreciation points. I would highly recommend this short historical romance drama with a sprinkle of fantasy elements to those who are interested in this genre.

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