Curse of the Golden Flower

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Curse of the Golden Flower
Traditional 滿城盡帶黃金甲
Simplified 满城尽带黄金甲
Pinyin Mǎnchéng Jìndài Huángjīnjiǎ
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Produced by William Kong
Zhang Weiping
Zhang Yimou
Written by Zhang Yimou
Play:
Cao Yu
Starring Chow Yun-Fat
Gong Li
Jay Chou
Music by Shigeru Umebayashi
Cinematography Zhao Xiaoding
Distributed by United States:
Sony Pictures Classics
Hong Kong:
Edko Film
Release date(s) People's Republic of China December 21, 2006

United States December 21, 2006

United Kingdom April 13, 2007
Running time 114 min.
Country China
Language Mandarin
Budget $45,000,000

Curse of the Golden Flower (simplified Chinese: 满城尽带黄金甲; traditional Chinese: 滿城盡帶黃金甲; pinyin: Mǎnchéng Jìndài Huángjīnjiǎ), also known literally as When Golden Armour Covers the Entire City, is a 2006 Chinese wuxia film directed by Zhang Yimou.

With a budget of $45 million, it was at the time of its release the most expensive Chinese film to date, surpassing Chen Kaige's The Promise.[1] It was chosen as China's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for the year 2006;[2] it was not nominated in that category though it did receive a Costume Design nomination.

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Name

The title of the movie is taken from the last line of a Tang dynasty poem attributed to the rebel leader Huang Chao, "On the Chrysanthemum, after failing the Imperial Examination" (不第後賦菊/不第后赋菊) or simply "Chrysanthemum":

“ When autumn comes on Double Ninth Festival, / my flower [the chrysanthemum] will bloom and all others perish. / When the sky-reaching fragrance [of the chrysanthemum] permeates Chang'an, / the whole city will be clothed in golden armour.[3] ”

Due to the film's high profile while it was still in production, its title, which can be literally translated as "The Whole City is Clothed in Golden Armor", became a colorful metaphor for the spring 2006 sandstorms in Beijing and the term "golden armor" (黄金甲, huángjīnjiǎ) has since become a metaphor for sandstorms among the locals.[4]

[edit] Plot

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play Thunderstorm (雷雨 pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the imperial court of the Later Shu, which was during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, golden flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) returns unexpectedly with his second son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but given the chilled relations between the Emperor and the ailing Empress (Gong Li), this seems disingenuous. For many years, the Empress and Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), her stepson, have had an illicit liaison. Feeling trapped, Prince Wan dreams of escaping the palace with his secret love Chan (Li Man), the Imperial Doctor's daughter. Meanwhile, Prince Jai, the faithful son, grows worried over the Empress's health and her obsession with golden chrysanthemums. Could she be headed down an ominous path? The Emperor harbors equally clandestine plans; the Imperial Doctor (Ni Dahong) is the only one privy to his machinations. When the Emperor senses a looming threat, he relocates the doctor's family from the Palace to a remote area. While they are en route, mysterious assassins attack them. Chan and her mother, Jiang Shi (Chen Jin) are forced back to the palace. Their return sets off a tumultuous sequence of dark surprises. Amid the glamour and grandeur of the festival, ugly secrets are revealed, including the fact that the Crown Prince's lover, Chan, was in fact his half-sister by their mutual mother (the doctor's wife), and an attempted usurping by the silent third prince, resulting in his death as punishment for the death of the crown prince. As the Imperial Family continues its elaborate charade in a palatial setting, thousands of golden armored warriors charge the palace, who are sent by the Empress. Prince Jai is the commander of the army and ignores a warning, in the form of a banner, his father places. As they charge forward, the Emperor's personal assassins attempt to stop them. Although Prince Jai's men take various casualties, they manage to kill all the assassins and move forward. As the golden army marches into the imperial square, they are boxed in by moving walls operated by the Emperor's men, the Silver Armours. Attempting to break the hold on the army, Prince Jai orders the army to charge forth, only to be cut down by thousands of arrows. Against a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Palace. After the battle, the battleground is swiftly cleaned up as if it never happened. Prince Jai was captured and the Emperor ordered Prince Jay to give poison to the Empress. Prince Jai refused and killed himself. The film ended with the Empress slapping her medicine out of the hands of her server revealing that it contained a deadly acid that would have dissovled her insides.

Addendum: Not mentioned here in the above account is that Chan's mother was previously the Emperor's lover when he was simply a captain in the army. The crown prince (1st brother) was her son. Everyone was led to believe she had died while giving birth. Actually the emperor had her imprisoned but he kept an altar in her memory for all to see. The doctor saved her from dying in prison and later married her. He also did not know the full story. She discovered that the Emperor was slowly poisoning the Empress by black fungus being added to her daily medicine.

[edit] Historical perspective

The primary source for the screenplay (co-written by Director Zhang, Wu Nan and Bian Zhihong) is a renowned Chinese play written by Cao Yu in the 1930s with its story re-worked (by Zhang) to transport it more than a millennium back in time.[5]

At the start of the film, text from the English-language version of the film states that this movie is set in the time of the Tang, in the year 928. However, the Chinese version of the film did not specify a time period and the film's published screenplay indicates it is set during Later Shu of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.[6] It should be noted that the story in the film is entirely fictional and has essentially no relation to real history. There are also a number of other inconsistencies with established Chinese history. These include:

  • The use of nail extensions by the Empress was not popular during the Tang Dynasty. Nail extensions did become popular during the Ming Dynasty some six hundred years later.[7]
  • Plate armor, worn by Prince Jai and Emperor Ping in the movie, was unpopular throughout Chinese history and rarely used in the mass amount as portrayed in the movie. Chinese armies preferred the light weight and flexibility of scale, coat of plates and lamellar armors.[citation needed]
  • Although the movie is supposedly set in the Five Dynasties period of the Later Shu, the architecture of the palace in which the movie takes place is reminiscent of the Ming Dynasty, in particular, the Forbidden City.

[edit] Reception

The US release garnered a generally positive reception (although tepid comparing to the director's past works). It received a score of 70 out of 100 from film critics according to the review aggregator Metacritic[8] and holds an average rating of 65% by film critics on the review ranking site Rotten Tomatoes.[9] Yahoo! Movies gave the film a B grade based on critical consensus.[10] It has grossed over $78 million worldwide.[11] It was also the third highest grossing non-English language film in 2006 after Apocalypto and Pan's Labyrinth.[12]

Richard Corliss of Time magazine praised the film's lurid operatic aspect and states: "this is high, and high-wire, melodrama...where matters of love and death are played at a perfect fever pitch. And grand this Golden Flower is."[13] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times states: "In Curse of the Golden Flower Mr. Zhang achieves a kind of operatic delirium, opening the floodgates of image and melodrama until the line between tragedy and black comedy is all but erased."[14] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times describes the film as: "A period spectacle, steeped in awesome splendor and lethal palace intrigue, it climaxes in a stupendous battle scene and epic tragedy" and "director Zhang Yimou's lavish epic celebrates the gifts of actress Gong Li while weaving a timeless tale of intrigue, corruption and tragedy."[15] Andrew O'Hehir of Salon states: "the morbid grandiosity of Curse of the Golden Flower is its own distinctive accomplishment, another remarkable chapter in the career of Asia's most important living filmmaker."[16]

Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post writes: "Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower is a kind of feast, an over-the-top, all-stops-pulled-out lollapalooza that means to play kitschy and grand at once" and Hunter further states: "It's just a great old wild ride at the movies."[17]

On the other hand, Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing feel that the film was a poor reflection of director Zhang Yimou's acclaimed works in the past.[18] Bruce Westbrook of The Houston Chronicle though praising the film's spectacular visual, states "Visuals alone can't make a story soar, and too often this one becomes bogged down by spectacle..."[19] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter states the film is "A disappointing misfire from a great director."[20] Gene Seymour of Newsweek states: "Curse of the Golden Flower is to the feudal costumed adventure what Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar is to the Western. Both bend their genres to the extremes of operatic grandeur with such force as to pull up just below the level of High Camp."[21] However Seymour states in the end that the film is overly melodramatic and ludicrous to absorb.[21]

[edit] Soundtrack

Besides starring in the film, Jay Chou has also recorded two songs to accompany the film, one titled "Chrysanthemum Terrace" (Chinese: 菊花台; pinyin: Júhuā tái), released on his 2006 album Still Fantasy and one included in his Curse of the Golden Flower EP. The EP includes Jay Chou's song "Golden Armor" (Chinese: 黄金甲; pinyin: Huángjīn jiǎ).

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zhang Yimou raises "Armor" at CCTV
  2. ^ "'Curse,' 'The Banquet' picked as Oscar entries", Associated Press via Chinadotcom, October 3, 2006.
  3. ^ "Chrysanthemum - flower of honour". People's Daily, China, November 16, 2003.
  4. ^ The Word on the Street is 黄金甲 (huáng jīn jiǎ) webcast at Chinese Pod.
  5. ^ Berardinelli, James. "Curse of the Golden Flower: A Film Review by James Berardinelli". Reelviews Movie Reviews, 2006. Accessed 11 August 2009.
  6. ^ The novel Curse of the Golden Flower
  7. ^ Foong Woei Wan (17 December 2006). "Down mammary lane". The Straits Times. http://newslink.asiaone.com/user/OrderArticleRequest.action?documentId=nica_ST_2006_5334838. 
  8. ^ Metacritic
  9. ^ Rottentomates
  10. ^ "Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)". Yahoo! Movies. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809425422/info. 
  11. ^ Boxoffice Mojo
  12. ^ 2006 Worldwide Grosses
  13. ^ Richard Corliss. "Holiday Movies". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568455-3,00.html. 
  14. ^ Jeannette Catsoulis. "Movie Review: Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/movies/21flow.html?ref=movies. 
  15. ^ Kevin Thomas. "'Curse of the Golden Flower'". Los Angeles Times. http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-curse22dec22,0,3579440.story. 
  16. ^ Andrew O'Hehir. ""Curse of the Golden Flower"". Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2006/12/21/btm/index1.html. 
  17. ^ Stephen Hunter. "'Golden Flower' Bursting With Martial Arts Fun". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/21/AR2006122101618.html. 
  18. ^ Brunson, Matt. ""Foreign Affairs: Oscar hopefuls circle the globe". Creative Loafing Charlotte, 17 January 2007. Accessed 11 August 2009.
  19. ^ "Looks beautiful, but wilts without plot to sustain it". The Houston Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/movies/reviews/4362442.html. 
  20. ^ Kirk Honeycutt. "Curse of the Golden Flower". Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=8230. 
  21. ^ a b Gene Seymour. ""Curse of the Golden Flower"". Newsweek. http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/ny-etflow5023703dec22,0,2448027.story?coll=ny-moviereview-headlines. 

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Films directed by Zhang Yimou
1980s
Red Sorghum (1987) • Codename Cougar (1988)
1990s
Ju Dou (1990) • Raise the Red Lantern (1991) • The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) • To Live (1994) • Shanghai Triad (1995) • Keep Cool (1997) • Not One Less (1999) • The Road Home (1999)
2000s
Happy Times (2000) • Hero (2002) • House of Flying Daggers (2004) • Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005) • Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
2010s
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