Jhang Yimou: The Curse of the Yellow Flower (2006)

[Chris Knipp]

Zhang Yimou: THE CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006)

Bloody pretty, but pretty empty

Review by Chris Knipp

Tarantino could probably provide more contemporary celluloid examples, but the closest I can come to the plot of this elaborate epic of vicious royal conflict outside the world of Greek tragedy is the Jacobean revenge plays. And it’s got the poisoning that was all the rage in those days, as well as incest. Nothing too complicated, really. An emperor (Chow Yun-fat) of the later Tang Dynasty (tenth century A.D.) is slowly killing his current consort (Gong Li), through a royal doctor whose wife Jiang Shi (Chen Jin), unbeknownst to him, is an old mistress of his and the mother of one of three possible heirs to the throne, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), who is unwittingly having an affair with his step-sister, the doctor’s daughter Chan (Li Man), and has knowingly been the lover of his stepmother, the empress. You could say things are rather inbred in the Forbidden City. The empress, who suspects the hourly herbal teas to treat an “illness” are slowly killing her (and turning her into a “cretin”), is preparing a surprise to coincide with the oncoming Chong Yang Festival celebrating golden chrysanthemums. As the overwrought action draws to a climax one of the sons lays siege to the palace with a large army garbed in gold and embroidered chrysanthemum images, and a third son reveals another surprise: he doesn’t like anybody and wants to become emperor, now. Fields of flowers are drenched in blood before it’s all over, and digital armies have clashed by night, with hordes of red- or black-garbed ninjas flying down from on high to capture individual royal rebels.

This grandiose affair is not without notable performances and wonderful looking people, chief among them Gong Li, whose outsize emotions are worthy of a Greek tragedy – except that Medea didn’t have six-inch-long elaborately painted fingernails. Gong’s face is mesmerizing to look at. Prince Jai (Jay Chou) looks fabulous and sexy in a war helmet. John Woo favorite gangster/cop hero of the Eighties Chow Yun-fat manages to be both appealing and scary as the emperor and Li Man as the taboo girlfriend is just the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. Why doesn’t it work better? I think back to the pleasure provided by House of Flying Daggers and I believe the difference lies in the claustrophobic nature of this story, most of which takes place inside a garish recreation of the palace that looks like a very, very expensive jukebox. There’s just too much material here crammed into too confined a space with ornamental violence that seems too unrelated to the central core of royal machinations. I suppose these older-generation Chinese epics are the equivalent of popular folk art – except they don’t come from the people but from an increasingly international-focused film industry whose creations are neither culturally authentic nor emotionally convincing.

This is also a very nasty story. It’s demoralizing to find a royal family whose members are all out to get each other. But if we got to look in on that in emotionally valid terms – if some time was taken to develop the feelings and conflicts instead of constantly interrupting them with kung-fu action or vast scenes of concubines all with identical cleavages, or ninjas spinning around with curved weapons in the air – the nastiness might develop some conviction. As it is, this is a spectacle that seems both ugly and hollow at the core. Anyone who is seriously pleased by this may not be paying much attention to what they’re seeing. Sure, as a spectacle it’s frequently eye-popping. But its pretense at content is superficial.

[oscar jubis]

Murder, lust, deceit, betrayal, love, and jealousy. Indoors, family drama at a fevered pitch. Outdoors, civil war battle scenes masterfully choreographed. Stunning set design, luxurious costumes, eye-catching makeup and martial music add up to a magnificent spectacle. Then you have the supertalented Zhang Yimou reuniting with his ex-lover Gong Li eleven years after their last picture. I do miss cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the one crew member missing from the team that made Hero, one of my favorite films of the decade. But his absence cannot begin to explain how quickly the pleasures Curse gave me evaporated. This film leaves no aftertaste. I read the reviews from respectable critics who loved it (in Time, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, etc) hoping to convince myself I had missed something. Instead I found the perfect quote to explain why this lavish production is not a great movie. The NY Times crit states: "With Curse of the Golden Flower he aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too." Not!

[oscar jubis]

Oops. Chris, I think you got the film's title wrong.

[Chris Knipp]

You are right though I think YELLOW might be a possible translation. Didn't know about Doyle. His presence in Wong Kar Wai's movies seems more important. Didn't know he was there before. I find Hero empty myself but guess many think it the best. I personally loved House of Flying Daggers. I'm not sure the Chinese audience is crazy about any of this stuff. It's very plastic and rather out of touch with real Chinese traditions, and it's very bland in terms of actual contact with life in China today. I'll go for the edgy younger directors like Jia Zhang-ke; I'm tired of all this epic foolery. My taste for spectacle is limited; it must be balanced by the offering of a discernible plot or characters one can relate to. Gong Li is rather impressive in a somewhat ghoulish sort of way in this. As for the Shakespeare vs. Susanne comment, it's not so much Shakespeare as it is Jacobean revenge drama, a related by different genre. There is something gooey and tacky but I don't know if Jacqueline Susanne is a relevant allusion or not.

[oscar jubis]

I love these grand period epics and I always have. They represent a long tradition in cinema that goes back to the mid-1910s when producers in the US, Italy and France decided it was worth investing large sums of money to create lavish spectacle. I enjoyed watching Curse of the Golden Flower, but I found it lacking. I don't mean to dissuade anyone from watching it, but I'm reacting against the assessments of several critics who give the film their highest ratings. It's one of Time magazine's Top 10 films of the year. After watching it I thought it was probable that I had watched an abbreviated, recut version of the film released in China. It is not. I wanted to know the story between the Emperor and the doctor's wife, and how he came to hate the Empress so much. His misogyny is presented as a given, like the youngest son's resentment, here used as a last-minute twist coming out of nowhere. I disagree 100% if you implied that Curse has no discernible plot. It has that, and the narrative is quite coherent, but lacks nuance and depth.

[Chris Knipp]

I disagree 100% if you implied that Curse has no discernible plot. It has that, and the narrative is quite coherent, but lacks nuance and depth.

Well, you would know if I implied that, and I didn't. If you think otherwise, quote the place where you think I'm implying it. You are more concerned that there are gaps in the plot than I am. I spoke of "overwrought action" and the "claustrophobic nature of this story," but I didn't by any means say "no discernible plot." If anything there is too much plot, but that's typical of this kind of thing. When you say "I love these grand period epics and I always have," there you point to a bias which I lack--though my problem with this statement is that it's so vague and sweeping. "These grand period epics" comprises such a broad category. I like stories that are grand epics -- sometimes. Depends on which one. But I suppose that extremely elaborate glitzy movies are not generally what I rush out to see. I prefer the small, dark kind. However, I loved House of Flying Daggers, as I just said.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I'll go for the edgy younger directors like Jia Zhang-ke; I'm tired of all this epic foolery. My taste for spectacle is limited; it must be balanced by the offering of a discernible plot or characters one can relate to.

This is the quote you asked for.

[Chris Knipp]

You were right to call me on that statement. "Discernible" was not the right word to use. Maybe "coherent."