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198 Yunda Eddie FengSegment 5 (2:05:01–2:07:56) is the end credits sequence, which does nothave any visual or aural overlaps with Segment 4.The first narrational analyses of Purple Butterfly appeared at websitesdevoted to Chinese cinema. While not scholarly in nature, viewingguides at MonkeyPeaches.com and HelloZiyi.us are valuable resources,providing background historical information and clarifying visual/auralcues. HelloZiyi.us also provides rectificatory English-language subtitlesfor Itami’s revelations during his dance with Xinxia. 6 The Palm PicturesRegion 1 DVD’s subtitles incorrectly have Itami stating that Yamamoto waskilled by Xinxia’s fellow resistance members, that he and Xinxia were bothsuccessful, and that they can go to Tokyo together. Itami actually says thatYamamoto returned to Tokyo safely and that Xinxia can never accomplishher mission. Moreover, Itami does not mention anything about Xinxia goingto Tokyo with him. This is a significant piece of information because itreiterates the movie’s pessimistic outlook.Purple Butterfly is a series of fragments and moody montages, and LouYe repeats images so that viewers can make connections between actionsthat were interrupted while the movie shifts from one set of characters toanother. After being the center of attention in Segment 1, Xinxia and Itamidisappear for more than 10 minutes and 30 minutes, respectively. Xinxia’sreappearance is not even immediately apparent; she and Xieming areblurred background figures in an extreme close-up shot of Yiling’s face rightbefore the train-station shootout sequence. Confusion is lessened once onerealizes that long fades and complete editing breaks (i.e., edits without pictureor sound bridges) denote temporal transitions and jumps throughoutthe movie’s non-linear structure.Purple Butterfly is short on expository dialogue and text. Captions thatreveal the settings and times of Segments 1 and 2 appear two minutes aftertheir respective segments start. Itami never tells anyone that he speaksVietnamese in addition to Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Therefore, unlessone understands some combination of the aforementioned three languages,a viewer may not know that Itami converses with his landlady in Vietnamese.(Xinxia tells Xieming that Itami’s landlady is Vietnamese, but this piece ofinformation is insufficient to support a definite conclusion that Itami speaksVietnamese. The only way to know that Itami speaks Vietnamese is to understandVietnamese, too.) The lack of exposition is especially taxing on viewerswho are unfamiliar with East-Asian languages, histories, and cultures.Such viewers may fail to distinguish Chinese characters from Japanese onesand may not understand why it was difficult for Chinese and Japanese