Butterfly Smile

Midnight in Beijing. A woman in her car runs into a cyclist in a badly lit outer suburb and flees in panic. But there was a witness, Kang Ping, a computer salesman and amateur photographer who had been commissioned to spy on the woman, the photo model Meng Xing. Kang Ping does not know that his client is Meng’s husband, Meng Xing doesn’t know she’s been spied on. The photographer takes the victim of the accident to the hospital, but does not shop the woman to the police. Without addressing her directly, Kang Ping tries to help the woman take responsibility for the event. His message gradually gets through; Meng goes to the police. When she has exchanged her beautiful dresses for the prison uniform, she at last finds peace of mind and gets the most beautiful smile, the `butterfly smile’.With Butterfly Smile, He Jianjun returns to themes such as voyeurism and snooping around in other people’s lives that he had already investigated in his prizewinning Postman and that, like the first two films by He, was also premièred at the Rotterdam Festival. Butterfly Smile is an elegantly made film that is structured like a mysterious puzzle, with a calm and hypnotic mood and intriguing characters. Ge You, wellknown from Zhang Yimou’s Farewell My Concubine and To Live, plays a powerful role as Kang Ping.