Director Zhang Yimou’s latest swordplay inspired movie is a visual delight, but this one won’t please the martial arts fans…
Welcome to 10th century China, and the first family Tang dynasty’s rule is about to come crashing down around their ears.
Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-fat, A Better Tomorrow, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Killer) and Empress Phoenix (Gong Li, Raise The Red Lantern, Memoirs Of A Geisha, Miami Vice) barely tolerate each other. Phoenix has been having an affair with her step son, Prince Wan (Liu Ye, Lan Yu, The Promise), for several years. When the Emperor returns unexpectedly with Prince Jai (Jay Chou, Initial D), old deceptions begin to come to the surface.
Wan discovers that his mother did not in fact die, but was exiled so that his father could court King Liang’s daughter Phoenix. The Empress herself finds that her husband has changed the formula for her medicine, introducing an ingredient that will drive her mad in months.
But it will be her plans for revenge on the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, the palace covered in thousands of yellow chrysanthemums, which will finally blow apart this family once and for all.
As director Zhang Yimou’s third venture into ‘wuxia pian’ based storylines, following Hero and House Of Flying Daggers, you’d be expecting a similar mix of romance and thrilling action sequences. Wrong.
Through action scenes do come, Curse Of The Golden Flower is really a portrayal of a dysfunctional family (aren’t they all?) imploding in the most spectacular way, as all the years of lies and betrayals finally come to the surface. It brings those internal politics to the screen, often languishing over the pomp and ceremony surrounding China’s most powerful family, where the intentions unspoken, allegiances made and broken, slowly pulling them towards a very bloody conclusion.
Definitely Shakespearian in tone, the piece relies far less on action than it’s predecessors - even making some of the action sequences that do happen look out of place, as if added for the audiences’ benefit. The roots of the film, from Cao Yu’s 1930s play Thunderstorm, show in an often appropriately claustrophobic atmosphere despite the grandeur of the palace and other locations.
In many respects it returns Yimou (and leading star Li) to familiar territory, the seething underbelly of a wealthy Chinese family played out as in Raise The Red Lantern. ‘You had better understand that as long as I am Emperor, and you, the Empress,’ says Ping, ‘we shall play our parts to perfection’. The implication being that they are all actors, playing to pre-destined fates.
Chow Yun-fat gives an incredible performance after what has been something of a quiet couple of years in his career (though that’s going to change in the next few months). He is completely believable as the reigning monarch, instilling his character with remorse over his actions, yet without making him particularly likeable or sympathetic. He IS still a bastard.
Gong Li, too, is wonderful as a woman on the edge but far less vulnerable than she appears, reunited with the director that so greatly helped make her a star in the early nineties (as well as rumours that they might be an item again). In fact the whole cast is, without a doubt, fantastic - even popstar Jay Chou, who contributes the rather unnecessary power ballad over the closing titles (now there’s a surprise).
Mainly playing out the action within the confines of their beautiful, gilded cage, the production of Golden Flower resonates with that a country on the eve of one of the most important years in recent history - truly echoing the opulence it tries to recreate. Indeed, the films budget was the largest in China, some $45m (which admittedly, by Western standards still isn’t that much).
The set designs are incredible, matched only by the outrageousness by which action director Ching Siu-tung, on his fourth collaboration with Yimou (if you include the film Siu-Tung directed starring Yimou and Li, A Terracota Warrior) approaches the action sequences. It’s like being transported to the early, inspired madness of sequences in Duel To The Death and A Chinese Ghost Story, but with the sort of budget he never had before (and assistance from CGI that wouldn’t have been possible back then).
Of particular note is the assassins’ attack on the inn, using their rather nasty sickle weapons as hooks as they slide down hundreds of metres from the mountains. The final clash between the armies at the palace is also quite awesome, each loyal to a different member of the royal family, becomes increasingly and spectacularly ridiculous as each fraction becomes engaged in battle. Numbers increase beyond any expectation, as do the methods they use, once again pulling on Siu-tung’s rather off-the-wall inspiration. (You might almost expect some of these routines to turn up again, only slightly altered, in next year’s Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing.)
The only problem is that the finale, taking up the best part of a quarter of the films running time, does seem to drag on too long.
It all makes for a particularly worthy cinematic experience - but it’s not a martial arts extravaganza, so action fans beware!
DVD details
Distributor: Universal (UK)
The UK release features some minimal extras that add little to the Hong Kong release below, including two featurettes and a photo gallery.
Distributor: Edko (HK)
This Hong Kong release features a good presentation of the film and some extras in the form a 'making of' and stills gallery.
