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Curse of the Golden Flower [Review]
May. 1st, 2007 10:11 amThe Chinese film industry has got a lot going for it – marvellous vistas of beautiful scenery, astonishing sets in the form of Imperial Palaces littering up the countryside, and untold thousands of extras and costumiers happy to work for ten pence an hour because movie work can’t possibly be worse than going back into the factories.
What the Chinese film industry doesn’t have is anyone who can write a script for toffee.
So we come to another film in the tradition of Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Curse of the Golden Flower is unutterably gorgeous, wonderfully shot and every scene has costumes which anyone who has ever played dressup would cheerfully kill for. Alas, on top of all this, the script is an unintelligible bundle of slop which not only doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t even particularly try to. If you have a little button in your brain with an ‘off’ setting, then you’ll love this film as the pretty lights and colours will entertain you nicely. However, if you’re given to asking difficult questions like “Where did that army come from, and why did nobody notice it before?”, then this may not be the film for you.
So. We’re in 10th century China, Chow Yung Fat is Emperor, and he’s evil. You can tell he’s evil because he’s got a beard like Ming the Merciless (which he sometimes strokes for effect when doing something particularly villainous) and he’s slowly poisoning the Empress, Gong Li. I spent most of the film hoping we’d be told why he was poisoning his wife, but we aren’t. It seems he’s doing it just because he's evil and , unlike Ming the Merciless, he doesn't have the option of blasting her into space when he grew tired of her. Eventually I came to the conclusion that, like Prince Philip doing away with Princess Diana, he wants rid of her but has to make it look like natural causes.
Anyway, he’s poisoning his wife’s tea, which she knows but she drinks it anyway. It isn’t until the end of the film that she refuses to drink her tea and by that time the stage is littered with more corpses than the bloody climax of The Jew of Malta. Instead she drinks up, shags about behind the Emperor’s back (never a good idea) and plots rebellion (by and large, an even worse idea).
To be honest, for about the first hour I had fairly high hopes for this film. But then again I did for Hero and House of Flying Daggers, too. I suppose I’m just an incurable optimist when it comes to Chinese cinema. There are some flaws in the first reel (like the world’s worst ninja, who appears to believe that black jimjams are appropriate camouflage for the sumptuous orange and turquoise surroundings of the Forbidden City) but it rattles along at a fair old pace. Really, my only real complaint about the first chunk is the fight sequences. China seems to have limitless numbers of world-class chop-socky artists and fight choreographers, so why the hell didn’t they use any of them? Apart from that though, there’s a feeling of drama and conflict and place which runs quite nicely, thank you. Sadly, it all goes to pot in the final reel.
Shall we talk about the ending? Yes, we shall.
For starters, we have a rebel army and the Emperor’s forces doing battle in the Forbidden City. I’d guesstimate from what’s said earlier in the film that there are the better part of forty thousand soldiers knocking about, but at no point did anyone notice any of them before they pop up to do battle. This is particularly impressive as not ten minutes before the fight a character had ridden straight into the palace to the throne room without being stopped, challenged or even seeing anyone else. One can only assume that forty thousands squaddies tiptoeing about Peking in brightly-coloured armour is just such a run-of-the-mill occurrence in China that nobody thinks anything of it any more.
Then we have rebellious Prince Jai’s heroic one-man stand against his father’s troops. This is shot in heroic slow motion and with an ever-so-dramatic soundtrack. The only fault I could find with this sequence is that the soldiers have been ordered not to fight back as he chops them down like so much ripe corn. I don’t know about you, but this isn’t really my idea of heroism.
And, after all the Empress' plotting resulting in the deaths of her entire family, lots of her friends and tens of thousands of soldiers doing her bidding, the final scene can be summarised as:
Emperor: "Drink up your poisoned tea, luv."
Empress: "Shan't"
THE END.
I could have screamed. Two hours watching a chinese action flick and no comical jackie Chan pratfalls, no decent fight scenes, and nothing resembling a meaningful plot.
If the film has a theme, it's the idea that everyone has their place in the grand hierarchy of being and if the Emperor wants to going round being a proper bastard for no apparent reason, he can because he's Emperor and anyone who objects is in the wrong because heaven has ordained him above them.
As themes go, it's not exactly a satisfying one but I can understand why the Chinese government were so enthusiastic about getting Curse of the Golden Flower made.
What the Chinese film industry doesn’t have is anyone who can write a script for toffee.
So we come to another film in the tradition of Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Curse of the Golden Flower is unutterably gorgeous, wonderfully shot and every scene has costumes which anyone who has ever played dressup would cheerfully kill for. Alas, on top of all this, the script is an unintelligible bundle of slop which not only doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t even particularly try to. If you have a little button in your brain with an ‘off’ setting, then you’ll love this film as the pretty lights and colours will entertain you nicely. However, if you’re given to asking difficult questions like “Where did that army come from, and why did nobody notice it before?”, then this may not be the film for you.
So. We’re in 10th century China, Chow Yung Fat is Emperor, and he’s evil. You can tell he’s evil because he’s got a beard like Ming the Merciless (which he sometimes strokes for effect when doing something particularly villainous) and he’s slowly poisoning the Empress, Gong Li. I spent most of the film hoping we’d be told why he was poisoning his wife, but we aren’t. It seems he’s doing it just because he's evil and , unlike Ming the Merciless, he doesn't have the option of blasting her into space when he grew tired of her. Eventually I came to the conclusion that, like Prince Philip doing away with Princess Diana, he wants rid of her but has to make it look like natural causes.
Anyway, he’s poisoning his wife’s tea, which she knows but she drinks it anyway. It isn’t until the end of the film that she refuses to drink her tea and by that time the stage is littered with more corpses than the bloody climax of The Jew of Malta. Instead she drinks up, shags about behind the Emperor’s back (never a good idea) and plots rebellion (by and large, an even worse idea).
To be honest, for about the first hour I had fairly high hopes for this film. But then again I did for Hero and House of Flying Daggers, too. I suppose I’m just an incurable optimist when it comes to Chinese cinema. There are some flaws in the first reel (like the world’s worst ninja, who appears to believe that black jimjams are appropriate camouflage for the sumptuous orange and turquoise surroundings of the Forbidden City) but it rattles along at a fair old pace. Really, my only real complaint about the first chunk is the fight sequences. China seems to have limitless numbers of world-class chop-socky artists and fight choreographers, so why the hell didn’t they use any of them? Apart from that though, there’s a feeling of drama and conflict and place which runs quite nicely, thank you. Sadly, it all goes to pot in the final reel.
Shall we talk about the ending? Yes, we shall.
For starters, we have a rebel army and the Emperor’s forces doing battle in the Forbidden City. I’d guesstimate from what’s said earlier in the film that there are the better part of forty thousand soldiers knocking about, but at no point did anyone notice any of them before they pop up to do battle. This is particularly impressive as not ten minutes before the fight a character had ridden straight into the palace to the throne room without being stopped, challenged or even seeing anyone else. One can only assume that forty thousands squaddies tiptoeing about Peking in brightly-coloured armour is just such a run-of-the-mill occurrence in China that nobody thinks anything of it any more.
Then we have rebellious Prince Jai’s heroic one-man stand against his father’s troops. This is shot in heroic slow motion and with an ever-so-dramatic soundtrack. The only fault I could find with this sequence is that the soldiers have been ordered not to fight back as he chops them down like so much ripe corn. I don’t know about you, but this isn’t really my idea of heroism.
And, after all the Empress' plotting resulting in the deaths of her entire family, lots of her friends and tens of thousands of soldiers doing her bidding, the final scene can be summarised as:
Emperor: "Drink up your poisoned tea, luv."
Empress: "Shan't"
THE END.
I could have screamed. Two hours watching a chinese action flick and no comical jackie Chan pratfalls, no decent fight scenes, and nothing resembling a meaningful plot.
If the film has a theme, it's the idea that everyone has their place in the grand hierarchy of being and if the Emperor wants to going round being a proper bastard for no apparent reason, he can because he's Emperor and anyone who objects is in the wrong because heaven has ordained him above them.
As themes go, it's not exactly a satisfying one but I can understand why the Chinese government were so enthusiastic about getting Curse of the Golden Flower made.
