Curse of the Golden Flower
Director: Zhang Yimou
Year: 2006
Rating: 8.0
Every aspect of this film is excessive like a
Shakespearean tragic opera or a Grand Guignol horror extravaganza. Total
overkill in the lavish production design, the intricate costumes, the stirring
score from Shigeru Umebayashi, the masses of extras perfectly choreographed
and of course the stunning close-ups of Gong Li that come at you like a runaway
train. Director Zhang Yimou returns to his original muse after a few years
of flirtation with Zhang Ziyi. No one else could have played her role here
with the same disdain, passion and dignity that she brings. Only a few years
previously Zhang Yimou had begun the Chinese vogue of visually stunning historical
Wuxias with Hero and House of Flying Daggers to much international acclaim.
The two films came out of nowhere and were simply amazing. Nothing in Yimou's
past indicated that he could or would want to direct these epic films. But
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon changed everything. At that time Ang Lee had
said every Chinese director had inside himself a desire to make a wuxia film.
It was what they grew up on as children. It seemed that way with Yimou and
with the success of CTHD the Mainland wanted in on it. At the time this was
the highest budgeted film ever produced in China but still miniscule at $45
million as compared to what this would have cost in America.
Seeing this when it was first released,
I think I was underwhelmed after CTHD, Hero and HOFD. It seemed just
more of the same. I was Wuxied out. It seemed a film with few likable distinct
characters. It felt emotionally lacking. Now all these years later I thought
this was a stunning film - yes mainly in the look of it - but the slow build-up
to the final act of beauty, violence and tragedy now resonates. Tragedies
within tragedies. The visuals nearly overwhelm the story and the characters,
but they are there below the ornate gloss and stunning shimmering detail.
That begins with the wonderful first scene.
It is early in the morning and the human alarm clocks are making the rounds
in the palace tapping on their wooden devices in perfect unison to wake up
the household staff of hundreds, to keep them to a schedule. The women jump
out of bed in their dormitory and begin the process of make-up, dressing
and ornaments in their hair. They are all dressed similarly in low-cut gowns
that push up their cleavage in revealing seductive ways. They are all lovely.
One shot of all of them bowing down is breathtaking. A sea of white cleavage.
The household chores begin - never casually but with a formality and ritual.
Through the day the tellers of the time walk through the palace in hallways
of rainbow saturated colors calling out the time, clanging bells and stating
little homilies. Whenever any of the Royal family move about, they are announced
in deep masculine tones.
One of the daily duties is to give the Empress
(Gong Li) her medicine that has been mandated by the Emperor (Chow Yun-fat)
for her anemia. In fact, he has ordered the court doctor and his daughter
Chan (Man Li) to slowly poison her with black fungus to make her go insane
over time. This is the height of a dysfunctional family. The Emperor and
Empress hate one another. He is a sociopath and trying to kill her, she is
planning a coup. They have three sons. Prince Jai (Jay Chou) has just returned
from being banished to the military in the north for three years. Crown Prince
Wan (Ye Liu) is from the first wife who supposedly died and he has been having
sex with the Empress and having an affair with the servant Chan. The third
son is the youngest and perhaps the most deadly and duplicitous as he simply
hears and observes everything going on and bides his time.
This is the first hour of the film - the
set-up - and then with the return of the first wife to see her son it explodes
into action, revenge and recrimination. The main action scene - choreographed
by the legendary Ching Siu-tung - is the attempted coup and it has thousands
upon thousands of extras all costumed in gold or ninja black. It is a spectacularly
staged scene with everyone choreographed like a synchronized swimming team
of thousands if they had swords, spears and arrows. The film belongs to Gong
Li in her aching hatred for the Emperor and her love for her sons. Chow Yun-fat
is a large menacing presence with a few magnificent scenes but he stays mainly
in the background keeping an eye and an iron hand on all around him. In the
end perhaps you don't really care what happens to this family of rattle snakes
but it was beautiful getting there.
