Film Review – Curse of the Golden Flower
Title: Curse of the Golden Flower
Director: Zhang Yimou
Year: 2006
Genre: Drama
Format Reviewed: TV (Encore-Act)
Zhang Yimou has been well received by Americans like myself over the last few years. Hero turned into a kind of cult hit and introduced a lot of people to Chinese film. House of Flying Daggers even reached so far as mainstream theaters in my area. Personally, I loved Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, and thought it was his most emotional and best film of these three. Unlike it, Zhang Yimou returns to an action-infused (though you really can’t call this an action film) and much more fantasy-like setting for Curse of the Golden Flower, more similar in style to Hero if anything. Even the plot in reminiscent of Hero in it’s purposefully slowly paced story with extreme emphasis on the characters’ hierarchal status. But this is both the key point of the film as well as it’s fault.
The first half-hour to hour of the film is slow… dreadfully slow. For a minute I almost stopped watching, though luckily I was lazy enough this day to continue watching, and I’m glad I did. Although this part is slow, it really does serve a purpose in defining the characters and the setting. Especially for a Westerner like myself, it may have been impossible for me to really feel the last half of the film without understanding its seemingly unrealistic politics. There is an emperor, who in all definitions of the term, controls his land, people, and family. His wife, the empress, is living with a long-term illness which she suspects is caused by her own husband, who is also hiding some secrets in his own past. There are three sons, the oldest of which is to become the heir eventually, but he is fooling around with the doctor’s daughter. And just about every emotion and conflict possible arises.
One might expect this to be an action film. After all, it’s directed by the guy who did Hero, right? Obviously, it is, but someone looking for “just” an action packed, choreographed martial acts flick, Jet Li style, will be disappointed. Indeed, there is an epic battle toward the end of this movie, and it does have more emotional pulse than most action flicks because of the background in the family drama, but that’s about it. There are a few escape and execution scenes as well. But this action isn’t quite as polished or flashy as Yimou’s earlier work. There are a lot of “holy crap!” moments and it is a blast to watch, though.
Once again, this isn’t a film to be judged in the first half hour. It is quite long and deserves a full viewing. Curse of the Golden Flower never quite reaches the dramatic summit that Riding Alone did, but it not a bad film altogether.
Rating: 3 /5
Leave a Reply