2006 opened with the opulent but soulless The Promise by vaunted Chinese Fifth Generation director Chen Kaige, and now closes with the equally confounding Curse of the Golden Flower by Chen contemporary Zhang Yimou. No other Asian release has arrived with greater anticipation or talent this year, especially due to the potent combination of writer/director Zhang and his original muse, superstar actress Gong Li, reteaming for the first time in over a decade.
Zhang retooled the framework of stylized historical epics with the colorful, action-packed Hero, which benefited from a reasonably strong story in spite of its Rashomon-like structure. He followed up with the less cohesive but equally vibrant House of Flying Daggers, then retreated from those large-scale efforts to return to his roots with the small, simple, and satisfying Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, proving that he hadn’t abandoned his small-time beginnings after a taste of big-budget spectacle. Zhang clearly still knows how to spin a powerful tale, so it’s all the more distressing that the story is given such short shrift in his new film.
Gong Li plays the icy wife to the equally cold and calculating emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) as they raise their three sons in their luxurious, unbelievably ostentatious palace. There’s clearly no love lost between the two, although there’s plenty of illicit love between Gong and her stepson, the crown prince. The prince is also getting some action on the side from a palace worker, who happens to be the daughter of the chief palace doctor, who happens to be married to a woman with a mysterious past that disrupts the entire balance of power when revealed. Got all that? There’s more, and the twisted relationships of the royals and their subjects add plenty of head-scratching to the proceedings as viewers try to keep everything straight. It’s family drama on a grand scale, so fans hoping for a higher volume of action set-pieces like Hero are bound to be bitterly disappointed.
Article comments
1 - LastingMovie
The most expensive Asian movie. It's look's good and too luxury.
2 - Bliffle
Is this movie supposed to be based on the Chinese classic "Golden Lotus"?
3 - ZhangZimou_Is_the_Greatest
Actually quite a good movie. Zhang Zimou shows his hand as the dissident again. Consider these symbolisms: The emperor beating his youngest son to death = the chinese commmunist party killing China's youth at Tienanem Square; the captive empress forced to drink poison four times a day = the people of China, subjugated by the chinese communist party and force-fed lies; double incest committed by the crown prince (and acquiesced to by the emperor) = the depravity of the current chinese ruling class; the suicide of the rebellious prince = resistance (to the communist rule) is futile; the over-the-top luxury of palace life = the over the top, unimaginable wealth and life style of the chinese ruling classes and their money men. I could go on and on. (You go find your own!) The movie ends with a shot of the empty royal table, after the empress threw away the poison she was supposed to drink. Is this a warning to the communists? Or a warning to the people of China? Therein lies the genius of Zhang Zimou.
4 - East Wind
It is more a drama than a martial arts flicks. Believe it or not, it is a remake of a late 50’s movie “Thunder Rain”. Starring a teenage Bruce Lee. Yep, THE Bruce Lee. Whom played the character of the youngest son. The movie was based on a famous pre-war novel “Family Spring and Autumn (Means ‘The rise and fall of a family’ or ‘History of a family’)” about a moral decaying promenade family. Which the eldest son had an affair with the step mom (Yike!), and later fell in love with a chamber maid, whom turned out to be his long lost half sister by his supposingly dead mom. Which the long lost mom co-incidentally reappeared after she learned that her daughter got pregnanted by the eldest son…Director Zhang Yimou has added a lots of Blinks and extras in the movies and turned the story’s time line back a thousand year, but the story hasn’t changed much. All in all, it’s a good movie for entertainment, but I won’t hold my breath for an academy award nomination.