Curse of the Golden Flower

2006 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: After hearing about some things going down, a mean emperor returns home, accompanied by his second-oldest son. The empress, it seems, has hooked up with his oldest son. There's a third son, but he's next to worthless. He can't seem to hook up with anybody! The emperor isn't happy with his wife, despite her buxom bosoms."Not gonna have this ickiness in my kingdom!" he exclaims to one of the guys who stands around announcing things. So he decides to poison her with some fungus that grows somewhere halfway around the world. She, however, has other plans. A plot unfurls during the festival of chrysanthemums, dysfunctional family secrets are unveiled, and blood gets all over the place.

This was less a martial arts movie than a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy or [soap] opera. When action scenes did pop up, they were absolutely stunning--ninja guys floating through the air, swords flashing, arrows sailing, poetic choreography. The acting's great, the story's solid even when it's a bit convoluted, and the climax(es) are powerful and poetic and grand. The stars of the show, however, are the visuals. This thing's an orgy of colors and cleavage. Continuing with the richness and beauty of Hero and House of Flying Daggers, this third Yimou Zhang film almost exhausts the eyes by forcing them to try to slurp in so much color. Jaw-dropping set design here. There is not a single shot in this 2+ hours that the eyeballs won't enjoy. Couldn't stand that music though, especially the happy little song playing over the credits. What the bloody chrysanthemum was that?

One other note: I watched the English-dubbed version of this because I like looking at movies more than I like reading. I also had the subtitles on. They didn't come close to matching. I'm not sure which I'd recommend, but that might have been the source of some of my confusion about what was going on in this one at times.

Monochromatic: