Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/18/07
**SPOILER WARNING:
The endings of this movie and Jet Li's Hero can be pretty accurately guessed
after reading this review**
And now a word from the
Chinese Ministry of Information...
Look, we all know that
authority figures can be pretty nasty sometimes. Their actions can
lead to the deaths of tens of thousands in pointless wars of conquest and
sometimes they like to poison their wives just for the sport of it.
But what you've got to keep in mind is that they ARE authority figures,
and as such, they have a certain divine right to kill you whenever they
choose. You might think this isn't such a great thing. So much
so that you might even decide to rise up against them, plot to kill them,
etc. Before doing such a thing, we ask that you simply consider two
facts. 1)Any such action is totally and utterly WRONG and, 2)It's
also doomed to fail. In conclusion, should you find yourself attempting
such folly, kindly either commit suicide or stand nobly by while the authority
figure in question has you killed. Thank you.
So ends my interpretation
of the messages of Zhang Yimou's stunning directed Imperial soap opera
Curse
of the Golden Flower, as well as his earlier stunningly directed martial
arts epic Hero. Both movies come to us by the grace of a Communist
Chinese government whose gun appears to be pressed firmly against the filmmakers
heads whenever the pesky word “Emperor” comes up. Too bad:
while it's not in Hero's league, Curse of the Golden Flower
offers its' share of amazing sights to behold before its' plot runs straight
off a cliff.
It's the 10th Century, late
in the Tang Dynasty. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) returns to the Royal
Palace with his son Prince Jai (Jay Chou) to celebrate the Chrysanthemum
Festival with his family. In his absence, the Palace had been lead
by the Empress (Gong Li), who's been carrying on an affair with her stepson
Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye) for three years. But Wan is actually in
love with Chan (Li Man), the daughter of the Imperial Doctor (Ni Dahong).
The Doctor has been order by the Emperor to add a new ingredient to the
medicine the Empress takes for her anemia: a black fungus which will
slowly drive her insane. When she learns the truth, the Empress enlists
Jai in her secret plan to have an army march on the palace and... well,
politely ask the Emperor to step down.
I've left out a few layers
of affairs, betrayals and schemes, but you get the idea. Curse
of the Golden Flower's plot is the kind of thing Shakespeare turned
into genius and Aaron Spelling turned into Dynasty. What we
get here falls somewhere in between. Spectacular battle sequences
and some of the outrageous primitive technology-aided fighting styles we've
come to expect from Yimou help to keep things lively until the palace intrigue
boils over.
And once it does, what had
been a mildly diverting story just collapses. At least Hero's
Emperor-to-be (so well played by Daoming Chen), managed to seem like a
fairly honorable guy before the movie so ludicrously throws itself at his
feet at the end. Chow Yun Fat's Emperor, on the other hand, is an
absolute fiend, played with such decadent delight that one of the movie's
primary virtues is sitting back and waiting for him to get what's coming
to him. If only something other than the thanks of a grateful nation
were
coming to him... It's not that a movie can't end with evil triumphant,
it's just that movies like this one can't. There's absolutely
nothing in the first hour and forty-five minutes to suggest the resolution
we get (and even it cuts off so abruptly one might assume the theater lost
the final reel and just spliced in the end credits), and I was left with
the crummy feeling of the opposite of a studio-imposed happy ending:
a censor-imposed surrender to the fates.
Despite it all, Curse
of the Golden Flower is almost worth seeing just for the way it looks:
even more so than Hero or Yimou's mercifully Emperor-free Masterpiece
House
of Flying Daggers, every costume, set and surface absolutely glows
with a rainbow of colors. At times, I got the feeling that the characters
were living on a Christmas Tree: it's simply a beautiful film to
look at. Also worth seeing is the glorious way Chow Yun Fat cuts
loose as the evil Emperor: free of both his somewhat awkward grasp
of English and the virtuous characters he usually plays, he tears through
the proceedings like a force of nature. I'd love to see him take
this kind of role again in a better movie. The rest of the cast is
less impressive, good enough to keep the plot wheels spinning, but without
anyone really standing out. Also worthy of note (although not quite
as much fun as Flying Daggers' bamboo swinging troops) are the Emperors
elite guards, a bunch of black-clad assassins who sail into battle on ziplines
that seem attached to the heavens.
In terms of what he's capable
of putting on screen, Zhang Yimou is one of the world's most talented directors.
But there's only so much visual panache can do for a story that just feels
wrong. I'd like to believe that somewhere there's a cutting room
floor upon which Prince Jai finds the courage to give his Emperor the ass-whooping
he so richly deserves. |
