Zhang Yimou's Curse ot the Golden Flower

Zhang Yimou's is back yet again with another extravagant martial arts film. Hero was the idealistic film, House of Flying daggers was the romance film, and Curse of the Golden Flower is the tragedy. It moves slowly at first which will turn off many viewers, but if you can handle it the thrilling climax will not let you down.

This is a hard film to just quickly summarize as the narrative is told in such labyrinthine fashion. This film is mainly a tale of doomed lovers and betrayal surrounding a sickly empress(Gong Li) and a wise, ruthless emperor emperor(Chow Yun Fat).

The first thing to really talk about in the film is the great acting. Yimou finally reunites with his best leading lady for the first time since Shanghai Triad over 10 years ago. As usual when these two work together the results are stunning. Gong Li is always great so I was actually more impressed by the performance of Chow Yun Fat as the emperor. He plays it with such a calm demeanor that when his emotions run high they are impossible to ignore.

The film is made in that cast of thousands epic style of old Hollywood and its quite impressive. There is basically nothing in the film that is not gorgeous to look at, from the elaborate costumes to the rainbow colored wall decor. The number of extras in a some scenes have to rank at least around 500(I tend to exaggerate everything so im aiming low this time).

My main issue with the film is its use of violence and action. The film has some very large epic troop confrontations that the scale is so large it just is really to much. Not to mention the fact that much of the cg in these giant battles is just crap. This film tells a story that is very character specific and intricate but with these gigantic Lord of the Rings like battles it pulls the focus away from the personal struggles within the film.

While I think the battle scenes were too much this is still a very good film. It has fantastic acting and a powerful complicated plot. It fits in nicely in Yimou's body of work as a interesting mix of his old works and his new.

4/5 "Tragic, and Beautiful" trailer here