Monday, December 25, 2006
These few days have really added up a tremendous amount of driving experience, I drove to the airport to pick my family up, then drove to East Coast hawker centre to have lunch as well, then driving all the way back as well. I packed my bags for camp this week, resting at home before going out again at night to watch "Curse of the Golden Flower",
China, Later Tang Dynasty, 10th Century.
On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, golden flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The EMPEROR (Chow Yun Fat) returns unexpectedly with his second son, PRINCE JAI (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but given the chilled relations between the Emperor and the ailing EMPRESS (Gong Li), this seems disingenuous.
For many years, the Empress and CROWN PRINCE WAN (Liu Ye), her stepson, have had an illicit liaison. Feeling trapped, Prince Wan dreams of escaping the palace with his secret love CHAN (Li Man), the Imperial Doctor's daughter.
Meanwhile, Prince Jai, the faithful son, grows worried over the Empress's health and her obsession with golden chrysanthemums. Could she be headed down an ominous path?
The Emperor harbors equally clandestine plans; the IMPERIAL DOCTOR (Ni Dahong) is the only one privy to his machinations. When the Emperor senses a looming threat, he relocates the doctor's family from the Palace to a remote area.
While they are en route, mysterious assassins attack them. Chan and her mother, JIANG SHI (Chen Jin) are forced back to the palace. Their return sets off a tumultuous sequence of dark surprises.
Amid the glamour and grandeur of the festival, ugly secrets are revealed. As the Imperial Family continues its elaborate charade in a palatial setting, thousands of golden armored warriors charge the palace led by , Prince Jai. Where do Prince Jai's loyalties lie? Between love and desire, is there a final winner? Against a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Palace.
Review:
It's not a bad movie, in a nutshell, the Emperor (Yun-Fat) hates the Empress (Li). He's trying to poison her with a fungus that causes insanity, profuse sweating and heaving cleavage. Meanwhile, she's having an affair with her eldest son, but he's not really her son, because there was another wife before the Empress, one who got kicked to the curb. That woman lurks in the palace seeking revenge, and her own daughter is also having an affair with the eldest son, who is, yes, her brother. The other two sons wind up as part of a giant civil war on the outside and the inside. Then come the black-cloaked imperial S.W.A.T. team of flying swordsmen. What I'm trying to say is that a lot goes down in this movie, lots of spice!
The story line is nothing amazing but flows well although not devoid of a few loopholes. For the people who're not familiar with the entire power struggle, backstabbing stories of Chinese royal families, some relationships and emotions may seem a bit too much. And it did actually get a bit overheated at certain point possibly for theatrical tensions. For those who didn't appreciate "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger hidden dragon", you won't like this show. .
This movie focuses on Gong Li and she's a good actress. Chow Yun-fat is also good but his role is not as rich as hers. Liu Ye (crown prince) is adequate for his role and the character also has a limited range. Jay Zhou (the second son) is not quite up to par with the others but he has improved tremendously since "Initial D". As for visuals, the movie thrives on sheer opulence and extravagant luxury, tons of bright colors and shades.
Yimou's greatest mistake with Golden Flower is to allow his natural impulse towards regal spectacle to overwhelm practically every other element of the story leaving a poorer plot development. After an energetic start, the first half of the film drags perilously and stiffly from one declamatory scene to the next, and with hardly any action to be seen. Left adrift without the zippy fight sequences of Yimou's other wuxia, the performers still perform their scenes of passion and betrayal in a state of constant high anxiety that verge into camp more than once.
I gave the movie 3 out of 5. For a Zhang Yimou movie, the plot is really shallow. The movie did have its good points however, most men would have been distracted with all the heaving and bouncing cleavages the movie had to offer, but the ended plot was a bit of a disappointment, with the end coming too abruptly without fair development.
Which is a shame, as Golden Flower takes some impressively unexpected turns near the end. Amidst a bloody cacophony of combat, (the scene where the palace guards fought the coup was a bloody massacre, it wasn't even a fight). Obviously the king is a better strategist than the prince, and it was like shooting fish in the barrel, the trapped golden warriors stood no chance and were either shot by arrows or crushed and impaled by a closing wall of metal. The films takes a more philosophic than pulse-pounding approach, highlighting warfare's deadening horror instead of its thrills. Also unlike many costume dramas of its ilk, Golden Flower maintains a welcome cynicism about power; it becomes clear that all the luxuriously maintained rituals would go on unabated no matter who is in power, and regardless of their wisdom or cruelty.
At least I enjoyed the ending song theme sang by Jay Zhou, a very fitting song for a bloody and sad tragic ending.
3/5 stars.
10:55 PM
