Curse of the Golden Flower
I got a chance to watch this on the plane over and loved it. The movie looks beautiful. It's one of these cast of thousands historical productions, that's a feast for the eye, has plenty of dark family drama and even has some kung fu. The action takes place almost entirely in the Forbidden City. There is gold and red everywhere, brocaded tapestries and richly decorated furnishings. The thousand of extras are exquisitely dressed and everything is color coordinated. All the splendor feels a little overwhelming at times, but it's part of the experience.
Here's a spoiler -free version of the delightfully melodramatic plot summary from imdb (courtesy of Sony Pictures):
China, Later Tang Dynasty, 10th Century. On the eve of the Chong Yang (Chrysanthemum) Festival, golden flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) returns unexpectedly with his second son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but given the chilled relations between the Emperor and the ailing Empress (Gong Li), this seems disingenuous.
Amid the glamour and grandeur of the festival, ugly secrets are revealed. As the Imperial Family continues its elaborate charade in a palatial setting, thousands of golden armored warriors charge the palace. Against a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Palace.
The theatrical trailer:
A shorter, more action oriented trailer:
Think 'Rome' with ninjas, kung fu and haunting drum beat, and you've got 'Curse of the Golden Flower'. The film has all of the splendor of a Cecil B de Mille production, all the devious scheming and political maneuvering of 'Rome', but with more cool kung fu fights. It sounds like kind of a weird mix but kung fu is always a good addition to any plot in my book.
Throughout the movie, every hour is marked by eery chanting of a haiku like verse and the sound of a gong. Men and women all have long, flowing black hair and layers of robes, which increases the sex factor at least tenfold.
The emperor has arranged to have the imperial doctor poison the empress, but things don't go quite as smoothly as he'd hoped. Just goes to show being the Emperor is not all about the fun. If you're a random guy who's minding his business and poisonning his wife quietly and righteously - the ho is cheating with son from wife #1 - you can just take care of the deed yourself efficiently, no questions asked.
As the Emperor, you just can't do these menial tasks yourself, so you have to leave it to a trusted onfident to carry out the deed. Well, as it turns out, even in 10th century China, it was already difficult to find good help. Tragic really, since this leads the Emperor to lose not just the crown prince, but all three of his sons.
Being the empress is not all that it's cracked up to be either. The Emperor is carrying a torch for wife #1 even though he killed her *and* her family off when he needed to make a more political marriage to a heiress to consolidate his power base. Then suddenly out of the blue, after years of neglect - he was waging war in the provinces or some such - and making their sons feel inadequate, the empress finds out her husband is having her poisonned. He even has his minions report to him when the empress is not drinking all of the poison and personally forces her to top it up to make sure she's not falling behind in the dosage.
Where it gets really hard though, is being in line for the throne.
The crown prince has become the empress' boy toy while his father was away. Then there's the daughter of the imperial doctor he's having an affair on the side with. You pretty much need a pen and paper to keep track of how many ways the imperial doctor's family and the imperial family are related as well as who's trying to kill who. The mysterious ninja woman out for revenge against the emperor is the key.
Jai, the second son, is being trained to replace his father on the battlefield. At the beginning of the movie, he gets tested by his father, apparently just to remind him who's still the alpha boss. One of those testoterone-induced things guys do, don't ask. Jai's good, but his father is exceptional. This is why later, when his mother, the empress, asks for Jai's help, we know he's doomed. This was the most poignant of all the plot threads. It goes like this:
Act 1: Jai watches his mother drink the poisonned medecine under the watchful eye of the emperor's minion. He has no choice but to agree to help his mother.
Act 2: The emperor' sends waves after waves of his army against the empress' army until Jai is the last man standing. Jai keeps fighting, but there will be no honorable death on the field of battle for him because there are orders to take him alive.
Act 3: At the family get together for the Chrysanthemum festival, the emperor offers Jai and his mother mercy as long as Jai personally delivers the poison to his mother from now on and the empress agrees to drink it. Machiavelli must have cribbed his best stuff from this guy.
At the end of the day I wished I'd gotten to know these people better, because for all the close ups of Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat, they felt more like storybook characters than real people with actual feelings. The movie is still totally worth watching for the visuals and an amazing recreation of imperial china.
Here's a spoiler -free version of the delightfully melodramatic plot summary from imdb (courtesy of Sony Pictures):
China, Later Tang Dynasty, 10th Century. On the eve of the Chong Yang (Chrysanthemum) Festival, golden flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) returns unexpectedly with his second son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but given the chilled relations between the Emperor and the ailing Empress (Gong Li), this seems disingenuous.
Amid the glamour and grandeur of the festival, ugly secrets are revealed. As the Imperial Family continues its elaborate charade in a palatial setting, thousands of golden armored warriors charge the palace. Against a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Palace.
The theatrical trailer:
A shorter, more action oriented trailer:
Think 'Rome' with ninjas, kung fu and haunting drum beat, and you've got 'Curse of the Golden Flower'. The film has all of the splendor of a Cecil B de Mille production, all the devious scheming and political maneuvering of 'Rome', but with more cool kung fu fights. It sounds like kind of a weird mix but kung fu is always a good addition to any plot in my book.
Throughout the movie, every hour is marked by eery chanting of a haiku like verse and the sound of a gong. Men and women all have long, flowing black hair and layers of robes, which increases the sex factor at least tenfold.
The emperor has arranged to have the imperial doctor poison the empress, but things don't go quite as smoothly as he'd hoped. Just goes to show being the Emperor is not all about the fun. If you're a random guy who's minding his business and poisonning his wife quietly and righteously - the ho is cheating with son from wife #1 - you can just take care of the deed yourself efficiently, no questions asked.
As the Emperor, you just can't do these menial tasks yourself, so you have to leave it to a trusted onfident to carry out the deed. Well, as it turns out, even in 10th century China, it was already difficult to find good help. Tragic really, since this leads the Emperor to lose not just the crown prince, but all three of his sons.
Being the empress is not all that it's cracked up to be either. The Emperor is carrying a torch for wife #1 even though he killed her *and* her family off when he needed to make a more political marriage to a heiress to consolidate his power base. Then suddenly out of the blue, after years of neglect - he was waging war in the provinces or some such - and making their sons feel inadequate, the empress finds out her husband is having her poisonned. He even has his minions report to him when the empress is not drinking all of the poison and personally forces her to top it up to make sure she's not falling behind in the dosage.
Where it gets really hard though, is being in line for the throne.
The crown prince has become the empress' boy toy while his father was away. Then there's the daughter of the imperial doctor he's having an affair on the side with. You pretty much need a pen and paper to keep track of how many ways the imperial doctor's family and the imperial family are related as well as who's trying to kill who. The mysterious ninja woman out for revenge against the emperor is the key.
Jai, the second son, is being trained to replace his father on the battlefield. At the beginning of the movie, he gets tested by his father, apparently just to remind him who's still the alpha boss. One of those testoterone-induced things guys do, don't ask. Jai's good, but his father is exceptional. This is why later, when his mother, the empress, asks for Jai's help, we know he's doomed. This was the most poignant of all the plot threads. It goes like this:
Act 1: Jai watches his mother drink the poisonned medecine under the watchful eye of the emperor's minion. He has no choice but to agree to help his mother.
Act 2: The emperor' sends waves after waves of his army against the empress' army until Jai is the last man standing. Jai keeps fighting, but there will be no honorable death on the field of battle for him because there are orders to take him alive.
Act 3: At the family get together for the Chrysanthemum festival, the emperor offers Jai and his mother mercy as long as Jai personally delivers the poison to his mother from now on and the empress agrees to drink it. Machiavelli must have cribbed his best stuff from this guy.
At the end of the day I wished I'd gotten to know these people better, because for all the close ups of Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat, they felt more like storybook characters than real people with actual feelings. The movie is still totally worth watching for the visuals and an amazing recreation of imperial china.