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MOVIE REVIEW [He Said, She Said] . Curse of the Golden Flower

by Chris and Kris   ⋅   January 8, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

He Said, She Said is back! And what better film to start with than Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower? On to the reviews.

HE SAID:

The first Yimou’s first film featuring Gong Li since their Shanghai Triad fallout, The Curse of the Golden Flower should be something of a cause for celebration. But, the former artisans have ventured a long way from their arthouse roots, wined and dined by American dollars, the two have turned their focus toward money making event films rather than maintaining the artistic integrity they so firmly held before. Sure, the two make the occasional high brow entry, but the need for financial security is a strong one, and who really wants to go back to starving artist days? It is a path most recently taken by Chen Kaige, with his insultingly simplistic Wu Ji (aka: The Promise). But as offensive as Wu Ji was (and Yimou’s own House of Flying Daggers for that matter), nothing could prepare me for Yimou’s Golden Flower. This film doesn’t just treat its audience as idiots, but complete brain-dead automatons.

A brief rundown of the plot is in order. The time is the Tang Dynasty, 10th century China. While Emperor Ping (Chow Yun Fat) has been away, his wife, Empress Phoenix (Gong Li), has been cuddling up with her stepson, Prince Chang. But, Ping’s no dummy. Wise to her antics, he’s on his way home, and things are about to get ugly.

As far as the narrative is concerned, Curse of the Golden Flower’s familial intrigue would have a hard time finding a home even on daytime trash like Days of Our Lives. It’s not so much the subject as the fact the story itself is so simple and so appallingly lame. Not helping the matter are the series of redundant explanatory exposition sequences built into the narrative. Everything is shown, and then reiterated until only the most dense heads in the audience are assured an understanding. For example, if you don’t initially understand the relationship between the king and the mysterious visitor, don’t worry. You will have it hinted at and explained at least three more times before the big reveal. As a result, you have the biggest waste of screen time this side of Lord of the Rings.

This kid gloves approach toward storytelling extends to the external manifestations of the characters. Chow Yun Fat has silver hair and silver eyes. His troops are silver. Gong Li is in turn aligned with gold. Her hair ornaments, her lips, her dress, all gold. Her troops are gold. If you have a hard time keeping track of the sides, you deserve a slap on the head.

Much talk has been made of the look of the film. Being Zhang’s third big budget period picture to be financed by American money, he’s working with budgets heretofore unseen in China, and putting every dollar to use — for better or for worse. You see, the production design has all the taste and refinement you would expect of a five year old. If it shines, if it’s colorful, it’s in there. If it has a surface it must be decorated, whether a table cloth, a wall, an eyeball, or a fingernail. Even the ornately carved wall coverings receive a layer of pastel rainbow paint. There’s opulence and then there’s gaudiness, and this is clearly a case of the latter.

Being that we watched this film immediately following Children of Men, what really became apparent was what a one note actress Gong Li has become. Her acting repertoire seems to consist of sitting pretty, looking bitchy, getting angry, crying. Repeat as needed. I came to the realization that this was not the first time I’d seen such a performance from her. I had, in fact, seen the exact same performance in Miami Vice and Memoirs. Ah, how far the mighty have fallen. Watching her on screen you get this feeling not of a master thespian, not of Yimou’s former muse, but merely an incredibly spoiled old diva. There’s no emotional connection to be found anywhere near her character. Chow Yun Fat is another matter entirely. He’s good, but his presence is rendered near inaudible by the décor. As with Li, no real emotional connection with the audience is established, though somehow Fat does manage to eek out a bit of audience sympathy. Jay Chou…his appearance made me smile, in a good way.

Curse of the Golden Flower is a gigantic waste, of talent, money, and time — an absolute turd by any standard. Gilded, covered in macramé, and adorned with tassels, but a turd nonetheless. But, one has to admit that American audiences don’t exactly turn out in droves to see quality work. Yimou’s own Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, starring cult icon Ken Takakura, played hardly a weekend before disappearing from the theaters. Curse, on the other hand, is well into its fourth week of theatrical run. Take from that what you will.

SHE SAID:

Wow, talk about a dysfunctional family. Curse of the Golden Flower has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, and I mean all. The murder, the attempted murder, the incest, the accidental incest, the mysteries and the obvious shockers. There’s so much going on for the poor Empress that Gong Li’s makeup crew oft resorts to fake tears and fake sweat.

The set design possesses all the opulence of Liberace’s dreamhouse; there’s a mixture of “oohs” and “egads” with the many examples of limitless wealth. The only thing that outnumbers the amount of golden barrettes the Empress pins into her coiled locks are the number of suffocating servants who are just as easily and frequently shooed away, granting “privacy” with a diaphanous roll-up scrim. For example, over a dozen ceramic jars of holistic aromatic bouillon fill the Emperor’s special “steam soother” throne, replete with a perforated seat that warms up his tushy. Each jar commands a separate servant to prepare and fill it up. Six more servants circle the castle grounds announcing the time after delivering an amusing limerick. Another’s sole purpose is to carry a tray of royal napkins. Assembly line style, they fill the entire palace courtyard with golden chrysanthemums in the blink of an eye.

The recurring score harks back to the Best Buy turn-off-your-cellphone-at-the-movies warning preview, and made me giggle. You know, the one that was meant to resemble an Asian revenge swordfight film and had the dramatically curt “hooh.. haah” sounds in the background.

The costumer avidly took advantage of the Divine Blessings push-WAY-up bra infomercial (more info to come), and ordered up hundreds for the set extras. Kidding aside, the costumes were crazy, not pretty, but crazy. You could almost feel the heft of the layers of royal robes and intricately scaled and plated armor. I liked how the attention to the recreated chainmail was exaggerated with sound effects.

The dialogue is a bit wonky, but Yimou is not the stereotypical soliloquy type. Be prepared for a ton of backstabbing stares and almost-about-to-cry lip quivers though.

So nothing left to describe but the people involved, eh? Gong Li is wonderfully tightlipped and stern. No surprise there. Although her character’s world was unraveling like the pins from her hair, she maintained a blind confidence. Chow Yun Fat is delightfully blithe in this cat and mouse game. I think it’s impossible to hate the guy, even as he willingly chops up his own son. Jay Chou is actually pretty good as the staunch stoic son (to his stepfather) and the sympathetic sniveling son (to his mother). I’m not saying he’ll win an Oscar any time soon, but I’m sure he’ll be in upcoming releases.

I loved the Zhang Yimou/Gong Li connection back when my friend introduced me to their work and made his name sound a lot like “Johnny Mo”. Raise the Red Lantern was key in its portrayal of how some women possess strength when they keep up appearances and others when they counteract judgment with obtrusive outbursts. Again, it’s the shadowplay of the mysterious and the obvious. Part of me didn’t want to see Curse of the Golden Flower because it was touted as such a departure from Yimou’s earlier, loftier films, but now I see it as a rendering of similar ideals. The suspected heroine is not always the successful victor, there is not always a happy ending. Characters deal with loss and hope. Visually, there are the cliché bells and whistles prevalent in today’s bulging-budget Chinese films, but there are moments specifically “Yimou”, i.e.: complete solo color saturation. Boy does it make you dislike the color yellow, but boy does it make you glad that Yimou’s lofty ideals are still nigh and that Yimou and Gong Li are finally reunited.

Chris Nelson and Kris Kobayashi-Nelson are the proud co-founders of dreamlogic.net. The adventurous soulmates occasionally take a break from ghost hunting, pranking, programming to view some killer flicks.