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MovieMail's Review
Zhang Yimou is the most important Chinese director to emerge on the world stage – and also potentially the most controversial and misunderstood. With his two spectacular wu xia or martial chivalry films, Hero and House of Flying Daggers, Zhang moved into popular cinema and away from the smaller scale art films that had made his name. The Curse of the Golden Flower is intriguing because it offers perhaps the most potent mix of the popular and the cerebral so far. It is still large scale and spectacular with several exciting and mesmerising action sequences, but it is essentially a struggle for power within a royal family.
There are many reasons to see this film, not least the jaw-dropping use of colour (you’ll probably want to check that your TV set is properly tuned!) and costume/set design. But mostly, the fascination is in the casting and the performances of the three leads. At the centre of the film is the return of Gong Li, Zhang’s muse from his early career. Think of Raise the Red Lantern (1986) when a proud young woman is forced to submit as the fourth wife of a wealthy man. In Curse of the Golden Flower, this remarkable star is back on top form as a scheming Empress attempting to secure the throne for her son. But she is up against Chow Yun-fat, the Hong Kong action hero finally given an appropriate opportunity to show what he can do as a formidable tyrant. Taiwanese pop musician and teen idol Jay Chou is the heir apparent caught between the two.
From a Western perspective, it’s inevitable that the film will be read as a Shakespearean drama with elements of Hamlet and King Lear. It may be that Curse belongs alongside Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Ran and the recent Hindi adaptation of Othello, Omkara (2006). But of course, Curse is a Chinese story deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Like all Zhang Yimou’s films, this one has been argued over and discussed at length in terms of what it says about contemporary Chinese politics. Is Zhang condoning or critiquing despotism.? You really need to see this astounding film for yourself.
A balletic, Oscar-nominated martial arts epic from the director of The House of Flying Daggers and Raise the Red Lantern, Curse of the Golden Flower is a lavish historical drama set during the last days of the Tang Dynasty.
In 10th-century China, the Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) returns home from war unexpectedly along with his son Prince Jai (Jay Chou). But while the Empress (Gong Li) is happy to see her son, her reception of her husband is less cordial - their marriage has been an unhappy one for many years and in the Emperor's absence she has taken her step-son, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye) as a lover. In frustration, the Emperor orders the Imperial doctor (Ni Dahong) to secretly drug the Empress and render her insane. But the situation is further complicated by the doctor's daughter, with whom the Crown Prince secretly wishes to elope. As the family's entangled motives lead inevitably towards violence and retribution, their youngest member, Prince Yu, struggles to bring peace to the royal household.
