Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)

Over the years, we all have read and seen hundreds of different stories about "Evil Emperors", and in most cases these Evil Emperors are focused either in conquering more territories (with an excessive use of power and aggression) or in making the poorest people within their lands suffer. In this case, nevertheless, we find ourselves with an emperor whose evil, or at least his flaws of character, are suffered mainly by his close family, more precise by his own wife and sons, Of course, consequently sometimes ending up creating suffering for pretty much everyone in the Royal Palace.As in many great plays, the story is preceded by a number of "tragical mistakes", that lead us to the present moment and circumstances, that are very unfortunate and sad.Talking about the constitutive elements of the production, we can appreciate a lot of outstanding characteristics: great and amazing colors throughout the film, great martial arts fights; both one-one-one and massive, nice wardrobes, great scenography, etc...Another point that we could remark about the movie, is the detail that the emperor seems to be instructed (as the old emperors of China were actually supposed to) in a number of disciplines, including medicine, which the emperor in our story sadly uses for malign reasons.Finally, we can say that the performances of Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat both achieved what they were meant to; they gave us a great emperor we could hate and an empress we could both love and commiserate.Thanks for reading. IMDb by David del Real. Ciudad de México. México. October 11th, 2017.

I must admit that this movie is one of the worst disappointments in my life. I saw it by recommendation, and from the comments they made me, I thought it would be a masterpiece: A visually perfect film with a great plot focused on family drama and mistrust. What was my opinion when I finished seeing it ?: Yes, it has family drama, but the softer one. A plot that we have seen over and over again in best- sellers or epic films and while good visually, is not a masterpiece in this regard. Everything is overloaded: the colors, the elements of the changing rooms, the decorations. Everything is arranged so that you do not get to appreciate everything and feel overwhelmed with it. The movie is not meant for you to enjoy a good story, it's made for you to say "oh, look at those great scenarios, how awesome" and nothing more. It is not a deep movie and it lacks everything to be considered a "masterpiece". The plot and its coherence and any interest we might have in it were sacrificed for what could be considered a "greater good" but ended up being a "major evil." This leads to the fact that even the characters are not interesting, they are flat and boring and the actors hardly make an effort to interpret them and that, at the end of instances, it seems that they realized that they made a mistake with the plot and tried to remedy it. The resulting was a whole sequence of meaningless dialogues and cringe situations that give way to an equally disappointing and insipid end. Summary of everything said: They wanted to make a film visually perfect and failed. There was no effort in dealing with the plot or the characters and the director seemed more willing to teach scenarios and costumes than a good movie with all that it entails.

Apparently director Yimou Zhang was just warming up with "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" before tackling the project that resulted in "Curse of the Golden Flower". I think it's pretty safe to say you won't find a more outrageously colorful film anywhere in any genre, even topping the effort of Zhang's prior two films.It seems there's a bit of a disconnect between the opening scene which states the story takes place in 28 A.D. China during the Tang Dynasty, while the story line indicated on the IMDb title page for the movie places the time frame in the Tenth Century. A quick internet search reveals that the Tang Dynasty lasted from 618 to 907 A.D., so something must have gone awry there. Nevertheless, it's a compelling story if you're into dysfunctional royal families, because this tale is loaded with intrigue, falsehoods, and a surfeit of double crosses that results in disaster for most of it's principals.What you won't find here so much is traditional martial arts mayhem when it comes to the action scenes. A lot of that is provided by the ninja-like, black clad warriors who descend on the royal palace to defend the Emperor (Yun-Fat Chow), while an immense battle scene is staged in the latter part of the picture that rivals the opposing forces in "The Return of the King" from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you like to see your fight scenes handled realistically, better pass here as Prince Jai (Jay Chou) finds himself continually surrounded by hordes of attacking soldiers and fighting his way out just a bit too handily.So that's not the reason I would recommend the film for potential viewers. What I thrill to is the gorgeous cinematography and spectacular use of color for scenes ranging from the Imperial Palace to the chrysanthemum laden battlefield that lends a sublime backdrop to the carnage that follows. You'll also have to pay attention to the machinations of the main characters, virtually all of them deceitful and decadent as they play out their strategies to disastrous ends.

The movie is slow and boring. Every other scene is filmed in a hallway. There didn't seem to be a clear point to the movie. The outlandishly bright colors everywhere started to get annoying. I don't know why certain things were happening, as the director didn't think anyone needed certain formation. Perhaps if this movie had a different director it would have been decent. I heard the book was decent. Watch this movie only if there's nothing else to watch. How am I supposed to get 10 lines out of this? I stated my points about the movie. How am I supposed to get 10 lines out of this? I stated my points about the movie. How am I supposed to get 10 lines out of this? I stated my points about the movie.