Curse of the Golden Flower

2006 "Unspeakable secrets are hidden within the Forbidden City."
7| 1h54m| R| en| More Info
Released: 21 December 2006 Released
Producted By: Sony Pictures Classics
Country: Hong Kong
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://ent.sina.com.cn/hjj/
Synopsis

During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.

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chaos-rampant All the other comments point out the visual exuberance of this. Indeed the Tang palace shown here would make the Versailles look boorish. The film is a feast, a hot shower of melted color and gold. Walls are gilded, pillars are fire colored, ceilings are purple. Every frame an ornate sculpture. You can see why Zhang would be picked for the Olympic ceremony two years later - the festival at the end is like a trial run.But now to see the makings of things clearly instead of being dazzled. It's precisely a dynastic beauty that overpowers the eye, clouds the mind with visual smoke. Gold here is both opulence and delusion, beauty and ignorance, not unconnected these two. Within this gilded cage unfolds Shakespearean drama with tragic irony in abundance between emperor, wife and three sons.The idea, deeply Chinese, is that there's heavenly order in the world and man must take his place in it and devise his own order to mirror the higher one. The Chinese had indeed mulled over this long and hard to devise their own order that would support an empire. We see everything ordered here and the small rituals involved. Elaborate preparations are underway for a festival that celebrates the unity of heaven and man. But the medicine she's ritually made to take every day (to "balance her energies") is poisoned; an indictment of the artificial harmony favored so much by the Chinese.It is a household that we enter essentially. Scaled down from imperial machinations that involve poison and succession to the throne, we see an unhappy family. When the imperial doctor who has been administering the poison with his daughter is felled upon by mysterious figures in black in a most marvelous scene outdoors, these are apparitions of guilt that have come to haunt, puppets on strings descending from the sky. It's karma, another kind of heavenly order. Something went wrong once in this family and the world makes it wash up in front of them.I like that it's all abstracted within walls here, that we don't venture outside for sweeping history. It has elaborate action only near the end and using the same gilded abstraction. And that it builds the same order for itself around a household essentially and karmas set in motion. The ending is ruinous of course. All because a man took a wife out of convenience one day.
WakenPayne As someone who is slowly becoming a big fan of Zhang Yimou's work I decided I might give this a try. Out of the movies I have seen that he's done of Hero, House Of Flying Daggers and this that this is by far the weakest of his movies, which is not to say that I didn't like it - I just preferred Flying Daggers and Hero more. Even on it's own I'd say it is worth a watch.The main focus is this Borgia-type family of the Chinese Emperor trying to seize more power. The Emperor is poisoning his wife - slowly but surely, his first born wants to make his mother happy, the Empress finds out about the poisoning and wants to confront the Emperor about it and stop him from continuing by any means necessary, The Emperor's second born is in a love relationship with a slave girl who's a part of a family that's secretly trying to kill the Emperor and also trying to stop an... incestuous relationship with the Empress and the third born barely knows anything about what's going on.So what's good about this movie. Well as typical of Yimou's work the cinematography is excellent, The fight scenes are very impressive and as typical of Hero, the scale of everything is just huge. I'm not kidding when I say that I think Yimou took the best technical elements of both Hero and House of Flying Daggers and combined both of them to make a technical marvel. I think especially in the battle scenes in the last third... It looks like something out of Hollywood (actually I may go so far as to say it looks better).On a non-technical standpoint, the story maybe where it falls flat. The first third is completely uninteresting unless you love looking at art design and the characters... This may seem obvious but they aren't that likable and even then they aren't that interesting.On a more positive note about the story, I liked Chow Yun Fat's performance as The Emperor. Basically he comes across as the guy who seems reasonable unless you do something to upset him, when that happens - run, but when I put it like that you might expect him to play it basically like a whiny spoiled brat, but he doesn't. All I have to say is that I do want to see more of his movies.So I just preferred House of Flying Daggers and Hero more. But if you are looking for a movie about diabolical family trying to double-cross and back-stab each other then this is probably going to be a major fill for you. This does have some really good things going for it, like that cinematography, I could talk about how this movie looks good for hours. If you want to watch this then I'd say it is definitely worth a look.
OllieSuave-007 This is a film from Director Zhang Yimou about Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-Fat) of the Tang Dynasty and his newly crowned Empress Phoenix (Gong Li), who has developed a secret affair with her elder stepson, Prince Wan (Liu Ye). In addition, the Emperor's controlling ways over the kingdom have been challenged and questioned by middle son Prince Jai (Jay Chou) and the ailing Empress. This all leads to a brilliant and dramatic display of rebellion, corruption, jealousy and war as Prince Jai and the Empress attempt to overthrown the evil Emperor.The setting of the magnificent Forbidden City was done in such beauty and color that it will leave you in awe at its stunning display of majesty and power. I have visited the Forbidden City a few times and it was great to see it portrayed in the movie when it was the home of powerful royalty.The costumes used for the cast, especially that of the beautiful Empress, were exquisite and elegant and, at just over an hour and a half, this movie had just the right amount of drama and action to make it entertaining and worth the view when I first saw it on a plane ride.***spoiler ahead*** I wished that the ending could have been different, for example, showing the Emperor getting a taste of his own bitter medicine. However, I guess it just shows how far a king would go to preserve his legacy and grip on power and how even the most powerful and seemingly prosperous family could meet its decline through greed and misfortune. ***spoiler ends*** Overall, it's a stunning movie that really showcases the majestic and supreme life of royalty in ancient China.Grade B
Avid Climber Curse of the Golden Flower's intrigue is very interesting and offer a complex story. The over- opulence is even easy to disregard, until the fighting begins. It's like applying fine white lace to a garment made of coarse unbleached wool. It's messy. All the refinements get lost very quickly.The visuals are very poignant, the acting is good for the most part, and the scenario quite enjoyable. Had they cut out all the fighting, it would have made a pretty good movie. I would definitively enjoyed it more.However, if you're a fan of Asian style wire fighting, impossible odds, beyond measure heroes in action, then you'll have no problem enjoying this fine film. If not, then patiently sit through the battles and wait for the conclusion for closure.