Der Fluch der goldenen Blume

10th Century , during China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest . 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 . The control of emperor over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself . For many years, the Empress and Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), her stepson, have had an illicit liaison and unspeakable secrets are hidden within the Forbidden City. 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. 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, the emperor relocates the medic'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. At the night, thousands of soldiers are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Palace in a spectacular final battle .

This luxurious epic film was marvelously filmed with impressive production design , colorful cinematography and breathtaking scenes . The picture is full of tumultuous sequences with dark surprises , thrills , fierce combats and groundbreaking battles . Amid the glamour and grandeur of the scenarios is developed a familiar intrigue in Shakespeare's King Lear style , including betrayal , incest , crime and exploring the dark side of Chinese empire . Impressive and rousing fights with thousands of golden armored warriors reenacted by lots of extras . Overwhelming attack on the fortress where is relocated the doctor's family , being subsequently copied in ¨Kung Fu Panda¨ . Wonderfully photographed especially when against a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Palace. The motion picture was glamorously directed by Yimou Zhang who often works with the actress Li Gong and as well as most of his films , it begins with the title displayed in Chinese calligraphy style. Zhang forms part of China's Fifth Generation of filmmakers, who began making films after the Cultural Revolution , others from this group include Chen Kaige and Jinzhan Zhang . He is an expert on Chinese epics such as ¨Shanghai Triad¨ , ¨Hero¨ ,¨House of Flying Daggers¨ , ¨The flowers of war¨ and of course the Oscarized and successful ¨Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon¨ . Rating : Better than average . Worthwhile watching .

I had the pleasure of seeing this film with special personal appearances by Zhang Yimou and Gong Li... I have to say I was blown away by it! I was not expecting a story with such depth...The cinematography, the art direction, and the sheer enormity of the visuals were staggering. Great sword work... exquisite wire sequences... and HUGE battles - but all done with an intensity that's stunning. And even more, the acting was superb - Chow Yung Fat is a master, and his scenes together with Gong Li are beautifully emotional. Gong Li is more beautiful than ever in a role that demands huge range from the first scene and never lets up... She does her best work ever! I have nothing but praise for this film. I can't wait to see it again.

I just got back from watching the 8.30 pm show at Vivo City Gold Class and I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable the movie was.

I guess it could have been the bad press with the movie but I was really very impressed with Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat. They are true virtuosos, masters of their fields. Very impressed with the both of them.

Even that Jay Chou wasn't that bad although, although to be honest, he is just too green and inexperienced. He was miscast as the 2nd Prince because of his lack of good looks, but I can see that he tried his best.

But Gong Li, who acted opposite Jay as his mother was superb. Her convulsions (because of a long time illness no spoilers) were realistic.

Her varied range of emotions were a joy to watch. I didn't feel she was acting; you don't see the wheels moving. Chow Yun Fat's Mandarin wasn't that bad too. Not at all. He exudes the strength and power of the ruthless Emperor.

The only person whom I thought over acted was the actor, Ye Liu, who played the Crown Prince. I was not used to his acting. Now with him, you could see him acting.

The action scenes were not a lot since this is more of a political intrigue film BUT the two major action scenes were very impressive.

One happened at a small villa amidst the mountains.

The other is the one at the end which occurred at the Imperial Palace.

The only gripe I have with this film is the set decoration. It is quite garish.

The colors on the pillar walls were like these tie dye t-shirts which Rupert of Survivor wore. Really odd.

The costumes were not too bad. Even with my Chinese background, it was all alien to me.

I am not sure it's authentic but I will give the costumers the benefit of the doubt. They must have done they research to stand by the deep cleavage of the actresses.

Now I know where all the money went to. Though the set decoration can be a bit rainbow-brite for me, it certainly was opulent.

Go watch this film. It is a must see.

Chinese filmmakers have a double curse. They have this tradition where individuals only matter in context, so when there is a spat between a man and his wife, it can only be illustrated in large sweeps of society. This is compounded by the ability to marshal (real, human) extras and extravagant sets on a scale unmatchable anywhere else.

I liked this filmmaker's earlier projects. "To Live" really was able to show the inside of a man by mapping it to lurches and sweeps in the world around him. "Daggers" was at least a masterpiece of ballet. And "Hero," probably my favorite, was the most cinematic, expressing real human qualities in luxurious cinematic terms. Who can forget the spatial existence of discovered deceit in the flickering flames in front of the throne?

This is a wholly different formula in how the internals of a family sweep into the environment. The setup is an extraordinary web of relationships between two families. Some commentors think this is drawn from soap opera, but I think they have a common ancestor instead. This is Greek, and though on daytime TeeVee you will get similar relationship complexities, they will have their tethers to the cosmos broken. They will be single souls adrift in the world.

These are souls that command the world, apparently. It could have worked.

Why it didn't I think is because the filmmaker decided to root himself in the magisterial. It probably was influenced by the fact that he is a former lover of the female star and there are some reflections between that situation and what we see. Its "Annie Hall" with flying ninjas instead of lobsters. Breasts instead of the swirling of engagement. Narrative mistrust where Woody had open exploration and experimentation. Diane and Woody were in a place, a city that colored them. These characters here ARE the city.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Just saw this film at a cinema near to my home in Wuhan China.I rated it very high because it is the first film in the last three years which can tell a story so smoothly. After the first Hollywood movie The Fugitive(lead actor Harrison Ford) was admitted in my country, the Chinese films changed forever by the affections of Hollywood movies. But the Chinese film makers did not know how to tell a story in the Hollywood way. Especially the film makers wanted to make BIG movie (the movie making cost high) to gain the high profit in the market, but in the same time they seemed like they forget how to tell a good story. But Chinese audience is very tolerable, they watch they comment and they despise. After all these years' BIG films' bombing, I watched a good story telling film, why should I not be satisfied?

Disscusing this film in the technique way is not the important thing. All this years the BIG films all packed by the advanced techniques, but inside is a garbage.(sorry for the rude word, I can not say a better word for my poor English)

Somebody (maybe a lot of foreign people) may want to watch more KongFu in Chinese films. But what I want to say is KongFu is not the only part of Chinese Culture, in fact it never was the major part of Chinese Culture in the past three thousand years. I can say it because I know our country and her history.

The relationship and interaction of characters is the major part of film . This film is based on a novel Thunder Storm by Chao Yu in 40s of 20th century, and the background is changed to about 9th century.For the solid story by Chao Yu, the film is brilliant. And the success of this film is also a victory of Chinese writers. It proved that the real good novel can live all the time.

Thank you for read this.