Film

The Butterfly Murders

Name: The Butterfly Murders
Genre: Mystery, Fantasy, Thriller, Horror, Action
Released: 1979
Cast: Lau Siu-ming, Michelle Yim, Wong Shu-tong, JoJo Chan Kei-kei, Chiang Wang

Mystery

A 1979 Hong Kong wuxia-horror hybrid about a journalist, a martial master, and a mysterious woman investigating a castle plagued by poisonous butterflies and a deadly killer. It's visually baroque and structurally chaotic—dreamlike rather than logical—with practical effects that still disturb. For viewers who want their kung fu weird, their mysteries unsolvable, and their entertainment genuinely unclassifiable.

TMDb rating

3.3

If you liked this

Police Story1985

Jackie Chan at peak physical comedy and danger, fighting through a precinct and a shopping mall with inventive brutality. It's Hong Kong action cinema at its most purely entertaining and effortlessly charismatic.

But The plot barely exists and the dubbing is rough. If you need narrative coherence before spectacle, this will frustrate you.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin1978

Gordon Liu's methodical journey from revenge-seeker to kung fu master is hypnotic. The training sequences are meditative; the final confrontation is cathartic. Pure wuxia craft.

But It moves deliberately and resists drama. Modern viewers often find it slow, and there's almost no music in the middle hour.

Suspiria1977

Dario Argento's Italian horror masterpiece: a ballet student stumbling into a coven of witches through impossible corridors and baroque murder set-pieces. Operatic dread and design in every frame.

But The plot is threadbare and the acting is deliberately flat. If you need psychological realism, the artificiality will feel cold rather than stylish.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Butterfly Murders

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

House1977

Both are 1979-adjacent wuxia-horror hybrids that reject narrative coherence in favor of mood, visual strangeness, and a castle that isn't quite sane. Both trust the audience to accept illogic.

Nobuhiko Obayashi's debut: a schoolgirl and her friends visit a haunted mansion; reality fractures into color, collage, and pure visual fever. It's psychological horror as graphic design. Utterly hypnotic.

But It's abstract and deliberately nonsensical. Plot literacy is useless; you have to feel your way through it, and that alienates many viewers.

Martial Arts of Shaolin1986

Jet Li as a young monk seeking revenge with genuine grace and precision. The fight choreography is intricate and the tone balances humor with real stakes. Charismatic and energetic throughout.

But The dubbed dialogue is corny and the emotional beats are broad. The narrative follows familiar beats without much surprise.

Come Drink with Me1966

King Hu's revolution: wuxia shot like landscape painting, dialogue sparse, action balletic. A female warrior retrieves a hostage with a precision that still feels modern. Visually intoxicating.

But It's deliberately paced and the action is more dance than combat. Audiences expecting fast cuts and impacts will find it mannered.

The Killer1989

John Woo's masterpiece of style over substance: a contract killer blind-teamed with a cop, all slow-motion gunplay and melodramatic loyalty. It's operatic and absurd and utterly committed.

But The plot is nonsense and the emotional speeches are overheated. If you can't surrender to pure cinema artifice, you'll resent the running time.

A Chinese Ghost Story1987

A scholar falls for a ghost at a temple; demons and exorcists collide. Joey Wang is luminous, the action is inventive, and it toes the line between romance, horror, and comedy with actual grace.

But The tonal whiplash is severe and some of the humor lands flat. The middle hour loses momentum before the climax rescues it.

Vampire's Kiss1989

Nicolas Cage as a Manhattan lawyer convinced he's becoming a vampire, unwinding publicly and catastrophically. It's horror-comedy as character study: unhinged, sincere, and genuinely disturbing.

But It's aggressively weird for no plot reason. Many viewers find Cage's performance too much rather than just enough.

The Super Inframan1975

A Hong Kong sci-fi action hybrid about a cyborg fighting an underground demon queen. It's garish and sincere in a way that modern effects can't quite replicate. Pure entertainment maximalism.

But It's genuinely cheap-looking and the pacing is herky-jerky. Some will call it campy; others will find it simply boring.

The Wailing2016

Both are murder-mysteries corrupted by the supernatural into something that can't be solved, only endured. Both resist explanation and ask you to sit with uncertainty.

A Korean detective story that becomes theological horror: a village plagued by unexplained violence, a mysterious stranger, and a fog of suspicion that never clears. Morally vertiginous and gorgeously shot.

But It's nearly 2.5 hours and deliberately keeps you disoriented. The ending offers no comfort and many viewers find the ambiguity maddening rather than profound.

Phantom of the Paradise1974

Both treat horror and action and mystery as aesthetic problems first, narrative problems second. Both are strangest-room-in-cinema movies where style and mood matter more than who did what.

Brian De Palma's rock opera about a composer whose opera is stolen by a glam-rock satanist. It's Faust as a musical thriller, obsessive and campy and sinister. Endlessly quotable.

But The dialogue is theatrical and the synth score is aggressively '70s. If you need grounded realism, the artificiality is complete and total.