MOVIE REVIEW: Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
As established in earlier reviews, I love me some Asian cinema. It takes me away from the Eurocentric focus of Hollywood and gives some of the best visuals possible, both practical and digitally augmented. What every movie lacks to make it work is an audience, and watching this movie in its last week of its original run showed me it was deeply under-appreciated. Thankfully, my homie DaCarllo and I were several sheets to the wind when we watched this film and I am very sure we made up the deficit for any audience for Curse of the Golden Flower, directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Ju Dou, The Great Wall [2016]).
Set in an undisclosed time period in China (the English version says the Tang Dynasty, while the Chinese version gives no clear indication), there is war and rebellion, and the Emperor Ping (Chow Yun Fat, The Corruptor, Peace Hotel, The Monkey King [2014]) is not having any of that. He is a powerful man of amazing stature and commanding personality, unmovable in his goal to keep China together. To wit, he had his previous disobedient queen banished and remarried a woman now called Empress Phoenix (Gong Li, Ju Dou, Miami Vice). She bore him two sons: the loyal and honorable Jai (Mandopop icon Jay Chou, The Green Hornet, Kung Fu Panda 3) and youngest son Yu (Qin Junjie, Rise of the Legend [2014]). These are second and third in line to Emperor Ping’s son from the disobedient and banished queen, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye, Police Story 2013, Jasmine Women). The crown prince is expected by the Emperor to marry a woman of high standing and continue the imperial bloodline, but His Highness has other plans.
Prince Wan has already fallen for Jiang Chan (Li Man, The Destiny of White Snake [2014]), a palace servant girl who’s down to clown for anything he wants. No matter how nasty they get, it’s always pure and passionate. Jiang Chan shares her happiness with her parents. Her father is Imperial physician Jiang (Ni Dahong, The White-Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom) and her mom Jiang Shi (Chen Jin, Aftershock [2009], “Three-Body” [TV-CCTV, Amazon Prime]). They’re not happy and explicitly warn Jiang Chan to not have sex with the prince. She is young and hard-headed in her pursuit of pleasure, so she ignores that bit as they try to get her to join the rebellion…and turn the crown prince against his father.
What happens over the course of the film, between the wuxia and the amazing sets and costumes — semi-opaque columns of rainbow-colored stone and diaphanous silks flowing as natural light shines on impossibly details in every gilded stitch of fabric — is a plot to overthrow a stiff-necked dictator and save an empress who’s being poisoned to keep her confused and dependent on the Emperor. The ending is an amazing one that reflects its budget as the most expensive Chinese film ever made at the time. It also contains elements deeply frowned upon in contemporary Western society — the final result is far from a happy ending, and sure to be rejected by most.
<<SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT>>
When my homie DaCarllo and I went to see this movie, we walked in on a whim drunk as hell, and I am glad we did. We were two of four people in the theater that day, and we were kept entertained by the wuxia martial arts AND the relationship between Prince Wan and Jiang Chan. Usually Asian films with sexually explicit or suggestive elements don’t make it to America, but I guess Zhang Yimou gets a pass since all his movies make sure to show Asian people as sexually variant beings and not a stereotypical monolith. The way Prince Wan and Jiang Chan were at each other was worth the price of admission alone. But then things went off the rails in the best way possible.
The film’s climax brought the Prince’s dalliance with the help into the light with an unfortunate twist: Jiang Chan’s mom reveals SHE is the exiled former queen, making Prince Wan and Jiang Chan half-siblings…which means he had been banging his sister, and she her brother. The fact was never said aloud in dialogue, but the cast communicated this with only looks of recognition. Once Jiang Chan ran off screaming in horror at her incestuous relationship, the scene was complete.
Dacarllo and I found it to be the most hilarious thing we had ever seen and we fell out laughing into the aisles of the theater.
We laughed about it until the end of the movie and for days afterward. The scene was so good, it nearly overpowered the part where Emperor Ping beats his youngest son Yu to death with his heavy golden belt for killing Prince Wan. As a matter of fact, every time I think of this movie, I think of two things: Chow Yun Fat beating someone to death with a golden belt, and the incest reveal. And that’s why this movie is one of the best wuxia films I’ve seen in a long while.
CHOICE CUTS:
- Imperial Palace servant girls are naturally juicy. Either that, or those tops are tied far too tight.
- Emperor Ping may be evil, but the man is indomitable. He can sit in a chair in full golden armor and fight you without moving.
- As per Zhang Yimou’s signature, the color grading was striking. The imperial physician’s house was cool-colored and peaceful by the canyon road, almost monochromatic. By contrast, the Imperial Palace was incredible and over-stimulating. The rainbow jade pillars, the gilded EVERYTHING, and all of it so well lit!
- Gong Li does it again as Empress Phoenix, being an amazing actress and all. Wardrobe and makeup did their best to beat her at her own game of being beautiful, failing miserably but never dragging her down.
- It did suck that the only good-aligned person in the movie, Prince Jai, killed himself rather than participate in the imperial foolishness.
- The emperor’s royal guard pulled a stunt of a shield wall where the bearers stacked on top of each other ten soldiers high. Any rebels caught were crushed under the shields and ground into bloody paste.
- After all those years in exile, the exiled Jiang Shi did well for herself: she married a doctor, had a child, and learned how to be a ninja. Not many people can say that.
- This movie was based on the 1933 play Thunderstorm by Cao Yu, created before the Japanese invasion of China in 1937.
- Movies like this are why you always identify your relatives, regardless of whatever you find shameful. It can prevent so many problems down the road.
