Premise:

Yimou tells an epic tale of lust and power set in the opulent world of the Later Tang dynasty. The plot follows the story of the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) and his Empress (Li) and the tragic disintegration of their royal family–whose problems go far beyond the merely dysfunctional. For starters, the ailing Empress has long been having an affair with her stepson, the Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye). Unbeknownst to her, Wan has been dallying with the Imperial Doctor’s daughter (Li Man), and has plans to escape the palace with her. Meanwhile, the Emperor himself has just returned from a long trip, and while relations with his wife are obviously icy, it becomes clear that his plans for her are far more ominous than she could ever imagine. Everyone involved has a secret plan for either escape or domination, resulting in an explosive ending wherein the darkest family secrets are revealed and horrifically bloody battles are waged both inside and outside the walls of the sparkling, gold-encrusted palace.

My Thoughts:

I watched this movie I think the middle of last year. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as well House of Flying Daggers were both great films but I was wondering if, like most cool new ideas, we were gonna keep getting served up “the “slow motion cinematography at the just the right moment with rose petals falling slowly in front of her face” in every asian movie by Chow Yun Fat.

In Curse of The Golden Flower, I was pleasantly surprised. It did have some of the slow-mo cliche moments we’ve come to know and love in these types of the films but I have to say that the story/premise of the film were amazing and were presented artistically in a way that was not contrived or overkill. The scenery, saturated colors in some cases were great.

I was really impressed with the effort put into the individual character development. You really felt like the top 5 characters in the film had a deep and interesting story to tell about what they were going through inside the big picture that was going on around them. The movie had a nice balance of scenery vs. character development, much more balanced I think than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I’d highly recommend this movie.

Peace.