Cynthia has also returned to Shanghai now as a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group against the Japanese occupation, led by Xie Ming (Feng Yuanzheng).

After a case of mistaken identity and a shootout at a railroad station that leaves Yiling dead, Szeto finds himself an unexpected pawn in the battle between former lovers Cynthia and Itami who has also come to Shanghai, now as a member of the Japanese secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.

[5] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film, "a remarkable period piece, evoking the bustling, dense and increasingly dangerous Shanghai of the '30s".

Thomas praised Zhang as an actress with "formidable resources" and "has that crucial gift of holding herself in check at just the right moments for maximum dramatic impact and psychological complexity".

One such review by Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called the film "lush but confusing", and states "Purple Butterfly is rich with emotional turmoil and searing beauty, but it could have used a little more time in the editing room to make sense of it all.