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Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.”

Ever since I broke the news that Michelle Yeoh is playing Madame Morrible in Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked” movies, she has been saying that the films will mark her singing debut. However, Yeoh’s biggest fans have posted videos on social media of her showing off her vocal chops while singing the theme song of her 1993 movie “Butterfly and Sword.”

Yeoh laughed when I brought it up at the Mandarin Oriental-hosted dinner in honor of her Oscar nomination for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” “That was so many years ago in Taiwan,” she said. At the time, she asked the song’s lyricist to make things simple for her. “I said to him, ‘I don’t sing, and I don’t speak Mandarin. Can you please not have many words?’” Yeoh recalled. “But then the first time he showed me, I was like,...

Director: Michael Mak. Review: Chris Sawin. There's a plot summary on the back of the "Butterfly Swords" DVD, but there's more story in this little paragraph than there is in the entire film. It also gives away the one major plot point. Not that it matters because you won't really be paying attention to the story anyway. As you're watching "Butterfly Sword," it's difficult to distinguish who you're supposed to root for. You should obviously side with the top billed actors, but their actions seem pretty villainous especially Lady Ko (Michelle Yeoh). She's basically emotionless, doesn't know how to do anything properly other than kill people with ribbons, and says on more than one occasion that "you shouldn't think of her as a woman." She spends the majority of the film trying to convince Sing (Tony Leung) to be with her even though she knows Sing is deeply in love with Butterfly (Joey Wong). Meanwhile,...

Director: Michael Mak. Review: Chris Sawin. There's a plot summary on the back of the "Butterfly Swords" DVD, but there's more story in this little paragraph than there is in the entire film. It also gives away the one major plot point. Not that it matters because you won't really be paying attention to the story anyway. As you're watching "Butterfly Sword," it's difficult to distinguish who you're supposed to root for. You should obviously side with the top billed actors, but their actions seem pretty villainous especially Lady Ko (Michelle Yeoh). She's basically emotionless, doesn't know how to do anything properly other than kill people with ribbons, and says on more than one occasion that "you shouldn't think of her as a woman." She spends the majority of the film trying to convince Sing (Tony Leung) to be with her even though she knows Sing is deeply in love with Butterfly (Joey Wong). Meanwhile,...