Amazon.com
Curse of the Golden Flower, a fictionalized historical glimpse into the brutally complicated politics of Emperor Pings (Chow Yun Fat) reign during the Tang Dynasty, shows the viewer just how far a megalomaniac must go to gain and retain power in medieval China. Lavish sets, massive ceremonial displays, and perversely fascinating battle scenes impress similarly to the special effects Americans have come to love and expect from Chinese action films like Zhang Yimous previous House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. An intricate plot involving the Emperors wife, Empress Phoenix (Gong Li) and their three sons, Crown Prince Xiang, Prince Jie, and Prince Cheng, most closely follows the Empresss secret plan to force abdication upon her corrupt husband as revenge for his slowly poisoning her with Black Fungus tea. Opening on the eve of the Chysanthemum Festival, 928 A.D., the Empress obsessively embroiders gold chysanthemums to adorn her armys uniforms while hatching plans with Jai to overthrow the Crown Prince for control of the throne. Meanwhile, a side plot develops as the Emperors ex-wife and mother to Crown Prince Yu reemerges as Yus lover. By the time the Festival occurs, family members are pitted against each other in a King Lear-ian web of lies that can only result in demise. The most sophisticated narrative aspect of Curse of the Golden Flower is that as the royal family crumbles, the Emperors death grip on China remains unwavering. Gorgeous scenes set in the palace and costume design displaying Chinas upper class decadence cannot fail to entertain. The paradox between good and evil, here, is highlighted by how the Emperor successfully rules despite, and because of, his utter cruelty. --Trinie Dalton
Product Description
From the director of Hero and House of Flying Daggers comes the martial arts epic masterpiece whose savage beauty and exquisite elegance has mesmerized and captivated audiences around the world. Set in the lavish and breathtakingly colorful world hidden from the eyes of mere mortals behind the walls of the Forbidden City, a tale of a royal family divided against itself builds to a mythic climax as lines are crossed, trust is betrayed, and family blood is spilled in the quest for redemption and revenge. Starring Chow Yun Fat of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the embattled Emperor and Gong Li of Memoirs of a Geisha as his poisoned Empress, Curse of the Golden Flower grants you entry into a dazzling and spectacular world of betrayal, vengeance and passion that will change the way you think of martial arts forever.
Rate Points :4.0
Binding :Blu-ray
Brand :Sony
Label :Sony Pictures
Manufacturer :Sony Pictures
MPN :COLBR17913
ProductGroup :DVD
Studio :Sony Pictures
Publisher :Sony Pictures
UPC :043396179134
EAN :0043396179134
Price :$28.95USD
Lowest Price :$16.47USD
Customer ReviewsLots of glamour and lost meaning
Rating Point :2 Helpful Point :1
I do not thing the deep movie Raise the red lanterns" should be compared to this purely show-off movie.
While the viewing experience, the effects and designs are absolutely wonderfull, at times they are unreal and sometimes absolutely weird.
You should note some of the worst blunders:
The palace columes are glowing neon blues, reds, and greens.
The female dresses are strange combination of kimono and 1800s Ludvik the 16th court dresses complete with corsets which hardly contain the womens upper body parts.
The Emperes has a love affair for 3 years with her step son and expect it to be secret.... yeah right with the hundreds of servants milling around everywhere, and walls consisting of nothing more then transparent fabric.
Epereror comes back from the front line of battle but I still wonder who was he battling with.
........
There is no WHY behind the actions either.
For no reason at all the Emperor decides to drive her mad with poison mushroms. Why drive her mad, why not kill her? He has known about the love affair so why now 3 years later.
And to top it off, the first Emperes is not dead, so that makes the new Emperes a courtesan only.....
And the wast 40 000 army summoned to defend the emperor, com-on how could they arrive in the city unnoticed and in less then half a day.... on foot?
You will not learn anything about the life in the forbiden city, there is no kung-fu fights, no behind the senes love story. This movie is purely show off. Great costumes, unreal but great. Elaborate decorations, and hey ohhh so much gold one wonders they were able to stand straight at all, instead of crawling on the floor under the weight.
But that is the point, if you want to watch it DO NOT THINK AT ALL.
I give it 1 for decorations and 2 for the pretty faces
good color, so-so story
Rating Point :3 Helpful Point :0
the BD movie video and audio are fine, story so-so. if you know director Zhang Yimou, it is another same movie/story just like "House of Flying Daggers","Hero". i think he pays too much attention to coloring, not the story. 5 for color, 4.5 for video,4 for audio,3 for story. 3 for acting.
Curse of the Golden Flower Review
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0
This movie is a HUGE epic movie. It takes place in an early Chinese dynasty. It is amazing what plotting goes on in the family. And truly, I had to watch it more than once to get clear exactly what the family connections were. It is so beautifully made, unbelievable. Drama and intrigue, lots of action. Great movie, one you need to be able to sit down and concentrate to watch. Its well worth the purchase price, and a great addition to your DVD library.
Visually Stunning
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0
While the plot regarding a Chinese dynasty family and their struggle amongst themselves against a tyrant of a father may remind you of a soap opera, this film has some of the most stunning imagery Ive seen in a long time.
Id recommend this to anyone who enjoys period films, great cinematography, and family drama.
Much that glitters, little thats gold
Rating Point :2 Helpful Point :0
Curse of the Golden Flower is a step up in budget from Zhang Yimous Hero and House of Flying Daggers, but its a step back in terms of drama: much that glitters, little thats gold. Set in a palace where everything is a spectacular and highly regimented ritual done on an epic scale, whether it is servants dressing by the hundreds or preparing food and medicine, it focuses on the kind of royal family who make the Plantageneats in The Lion in Winter look like the Waltons. Hes poisoning her, shes planning a coup against him and the Crown Prince has gone from an affair with his stepmom to one with his half-sister... Yet for all the poisoning and plotting the problem is that its rather dull. It never descends into outright boredom, but it doesnt particularly engage for most of the first two thirds.
As usual with Yimou, the moral of the tale is ambiguous: on one level it could be dont go against the natural order, no matter how unfair it seems (father knows best, even if he is poisoning mum), on another it could be know your place no matter how inexplicably cruel you may find the ruling regime. Or it could just be a good old-fashioned tragedy with unhappy endings all round. On a more dramatically successful film maybe the ambiguity wouldnt be so niggling, but with such huge resources thrown at it to such little effect, you feel that it should all add up to SOMETHING.
True, a lot of money has been visibly lavished on the film, but it rarely feels wisely spent. That the corridors of the palace look like theyve been designed by a Bombay stallholder with unlimited funds, more garish than opulent, make many of the interiors look more a monument to bad taste than a glittering faade to hide the corruption within. The wonderfully conceived use of colour and design of Hero and House of Flying Daggers here gives way to visual overkill. Forget the golden flower, this definitely suffers from the curse of too much CGi in the final battle as the addition of an increasingly unfeasible number of perfectly synchronized digital extras completely swamp the human element the scene needs to succeed. When the CGi golden army attacks the palace it doesnt really impress as much as it should - the CGi is good enough, but its also too controlled and uniform, lacking the feeling of spontaneity you get with real extras. Maybe its just that the look is so overexposed that digital extras seem too much of a cheat to impress the way that going to all the trouble of using the real thing did. After all, when so much is done in the computer, what physical human effort is left to admire?
Nor does the individual fight choreography impress as much as in Yimous previous films. There is even some surprisingly clumsy editing of mismatched shots in the smaller scenes that make you wonder whether Yimou wants to draw attention to them or simply doesnt care enough to finesse them. Perhaps its telling that the films most visually effective moment is the massive co-ordinated cleanup operation after the battle as the bodies are dragged away and the palace is quickly restored to normality and that only the films final scene has the kind of real emotional power that the rest of the film could have done with.
It seems oddly significant that despite the epic scale, only 8 of the cast are credited while the crew, designers, costumers and computer technicians are billed at great length: people really dont seem to be the films priority. Thats sadly reflected in some of the performances. Perhaps its because the once prolific Chow Yun Fat has worked so little this century that its genuinely surprising to see how much hes visibly aged as the Emperor. While this is used to some effect, we rarely see why he does what he does, which tends to render him more of a shallow villain when the circumstances really merit. Its certainly hard to see him as the wronged party when his revenge is so ruthless and calculated. But sadly most of the performances are decidedly one-note while the cast wait for their big scenes, with only the female cast making much impression (the film is good on the submissive role women were forced to accept). Yet as good as Jin Chen is as the Emperors wronged first wife, its Gong Li who really impresses, and how. As the Empress trying to hold onto her sanity long enough to depose her husband before his poisoned medicine turns her into a living ghost shes remarkably powerful without ever overstating: its the small details rather than the grand gestures that really count with her. Unfortunately as her stepson and lover, Ye Liu overacts the sensitive angst almost enough to make Nicholas Tse look subtle, yet somehow in their scenes together Gong Li still manages to keep them from sliding away into pure melodrama. Sadly, her efforts are never quite enough to make up for the films shortcomings.
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