Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)

Who payed the critics

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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.

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

First off I love Zhang Yimou's films - Raise the Red Lantern. He seems to be really good when he's placed under extreme pressure and has a modest budget. But when he's given tons of cash, he produces this.It looks like an epic. But it feels so try hard - like the effort to increase the bust sizes of all the female actresses by several cup sizes.I found the battle scenes to be very corny and fake. Maybe they were trying to make it stylized or something like Kagemusha but it didn't work for me.When I watched Raise the Red Lantern, I loved the cinematography, the pacing, the direction - this film however seems the total opposite. Maybe it was made for a greater mass appeal.

Curse of the Golden Flower is a Chinese epic drama film directed by Zhang Yimou.It stars big name in the Chinese industry namely Chow Yun- fat and Gong Li together with Jay Chou and Qin Junjie.The movie presents a dying love between two powerful people leads to deceit, infidelity, and conspiracy in this epic-scale historical drama that has been reportedly the biggest budget Chinese film ever made.This Chinese film takes place during the latter days of the Tang dynasty.The Emperor returns home from the war with his son Prince Jai in tow. However, the monarch gets a chilly reception from the Empress; though she's eager to see her son, her marriage has become deeply acrimonious, and she's taken a lover, Crown Prince Wan, her stepson from the Emperor's first marriage. The Emperor, meanwhile, has his own plan for dealing with his failing marriage as he's ordered the Imperial Doctor to find an exotic drug that will drive the Empress insane and administer it to her without her knowledge. However, the doctor's ethical dilemma is intensified by the fact his daughter Chan has fallen in love with Crown Prince Wan and the two wish to elope. As the Emperor and Empress allow their estrangement to sink into violence and retribution, their youngest son, Prince Yu, struggles to keep the peace in the household. The movie was a good one.The acting of the cast was definitely brilliant.It consists of spectacular production designs and giant CGI battles especially the swordplay and fist-cuffs.It was definitely lavish,beautiful and appealing.What never lived up into becoming an epic film is the story and the screenplay.The violent and operatic saga of cruelty and revenge became more of an Asian soap opera and a melodrama that was contrived at some parts especially in the ending.Nevertheless,it is worthy of one's time to watch this film.