Kill Butterfly Kill — Kill Butterfly Kill(Blu Ray)

Kill Butterfly Kill also released under the title of American Commando 6: Kill Butterfly Kill is a 1987 action film directed by Godfrey Ho (Mission Thunderbolt, Revenge of Drunken Master and The Ninja Squad). The two versions of the movie, both of which are included here feature different scenes. American Commando 6 was recut for American audiences and added sequences starring Mike Abbot (A Better Tomorrow 2, American Hunter and Final Score) and Mark Miller (The Siege of Firebase Gloria, Angel’s Mission and Ang Pumatay Ng Dahil Sa Iyo) and features on disc 2 drawn from a new 4k restoration, whereas Kill Butterfly Kill is presented in two slightly differing versions, the English language version and the Mandarin version, known as Underground Wife (both of which are included on disc 1 of this set) however, only the IFD English language cut is presented in HD, with the Mandarin cut in standard definition.

The film opens with a shot of a young woman running down a railway track, obviously fleeing from someone, there is a train in the distance approaching and a Goblin-esque synth track plays in the background. The young woman takes shelter in a warehouse, where she is sexually assaulted by a group of five drunk men. The young woman,  Donna (Li Yu Chen, Commando Fury, Who Knows About Me and Angel’s Blood Mission) jumps into the river in an attempt to commit suicide, only to be saved by a passer-by, Richard who just so happens to be an assassin. Six years later, the two become reacquainted, Donna tells Richard about her past, when she was raped by Chen, the gambler and his associates. Richard, who was double-crossed by Chen agrees to help Donna get revenge on Chen and his thugs by murdering them. 

The plot (which is largely borrowed from Hannie Caulder, a western starring Racquel Welch, Ernest Borgnine and Robert Culp, in which Welch’s title character is gang raped after her husband is murdered and she takes revenge with the help of gunfighter, Thomas Price played by Culp) works really well, and whilst the dialogue and the dub are pretty awful, the movie's sense of style and sequences of violence stand out. The film is regularly intercut with some unpleasant flashbacks to Donna’s rape, which never let the viewer forget what happened to her and makes the scenes of revenge somewhat more potent.

Kill Butterfly Kill is a good example of the Taiwanese “Black Movie” subgenre of exploitation cinema that was popular during the 1980s. These were a series of social-realist crime drama’s that often featured over-the-top sexual content, violence and mobsters. The film is peppered with surreal moments, particularly of note is a sequence around the film’s mid-point that would look more at home in an Alejandro Jodorowsky movie. The first disc is rounded out with the original SD cut of the movie under the title, Underground Woman, which is a slightly different cut to the main feature, as well as an audio commentary and a trailer. Disc two however, features a very different version of the movie, which was recut with completely new material to make a product aimed squarely at the 1980s American exploitation movie audience, this is accompanied by a trailer for the movie and a trailer reel for a host of other movies released by IFD.

Overall, this is a pretty impressive product. I doubt we’ll ever see a better release of this movie, and whilst some of the scenes still retain a fair bit of print damage, this is drawn from the best source materials available and for the most part looks very good. Those scenes that feature damage don’t detract from the film’s powerful message and they certainly don’t infringe on your viewing experience. The film itself is pretty good considering how cheaply made it was and how diabolically awful the dialogue is, and the whole story regarding the different versions is really fascinating. I just wish there was a documentary attached that put all of this in perspective, however, that is certainly not a deal breaker, and this new disc from Cauldron Films/ Neon Eagle Video is a fine release for a very underground movie.