 |
Admiring Gong Li
The place to discuss the work of the screen legend
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:07 am Post subject: Reviews & Reactions II |
 |
|
Since the old thread is 20 pages long, time to start a new one...
It is not my intention to post every single review out there. I do want to share with Li's fans the reviews from major publications and critics, and those we feel are of interest to the visitors here...
Very positive review by Jamie S. Rich for DVD Talk (4 out of 5 stars for 'content'; 4 1/2 stars for 'replay'):
| Quote: | Though the trailer for Curse of the Golden Flower makes it look like another high-speed martial arts picture from the director of House of Flying Daggers, the movie is actually an exquisite melding of Zhang Yimou's two signature styles, the historical drama and art-house wuxia. It should please both sides of moviegoers divided by the two phases of Yimou's career, appealing to fans of Raise the Red Lantern and Hero alike. And for those of us who've been digging it all, Curse of the Golden Flower is a splendid treat.
Based on a stage play by Cao Yu, Curse of the Golden Flower is a drama about the court of Emperor Ping, a figure from the late Tang Dynasty. Chow Yun-Fat, complete with a regal beard, plays the ruler, and his presence is befitting a king. Whether he is decked out in gold armor or feebly stepping onto his throne, his body aching from the battles he's just returned from, Ping is an imposing man. He is coming back to the palace for the Chrysanthemum Festival, and it's put the court on high alert. His legions of servants are preparing everything down to the last detail.
The forthcoming reunion is also causing ripples among the Emperor's family. His current wife, Empress Phoenix (Gong Li, Miami Vice), suffers from anemia, a condition she tries to alleviate every two hours with a noxious brew prescribed to her by her husband and the Imperial Physician (Ni Dahong, To Live). Her real ailment is probably boredom, however, which is likely why she has been having an affair with her stepson, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye, The Promise), for the last three years. In turn, Wan is cheating on her, sneaking around with the servant Chan (newcomer Li Man), the girl who brings the Empress her medicine.
Naturally, that is only the beginning of the complications. Imperial courts tend to have little to do but feed on each other, providing real life precursors to modern television soap operas. The Emperor has tired of his wife, and he's been instructing his Physician to add a poisonous fungus to her medicinal potion. The doctor is more than happy to do comply. Between this sinister plot and his daughter's relationship with the Crown Prince, his family can only advance.
The only thing that barring Wan from the seat of power is his own lack of a spine. Having seen his eldest son's void of talent, the Emperor has been grooming his second son, the Empress' first offspring, Jai (Jay Chou, Initial D). Jai has been on the battlefield with his father, where he redeemed himself enough for previous rebellious acts, he's going to be moved to the pole position.
Finally, rounding out the family is the youngest prince, Yu (Junjie Qin, also a first-timer). He seems innocuous at first, the little brother who is always running to catch-up. And yet, Yimou keeps revealing him in places he should not be, lurking around corners at all the right times to eavesdrop on sensitive conversations.
The Chrysanthemum Festival is an auspicious event. The massive courtyard of the palace is filled with the yellow flowers, and the Empress has been embroidering chrysanthemum designs out of gold thread. Little does anyone know that these will be the symbols of her coup. The Emperor is pleased to be bringing his family together for the celebration, and when it comes to dissension in his ranks, he is out of the loop. That's a critical error in a classic tragedy. What you know and who knows that you know is crucial to staying alive. Being aware of her own poisoning and some rotten skeletons from her husband's past makes it appear that the Empress holds all the cards, but the path to the throne is not so simple. Her plot will be met with counterplots, and a bloody battle will have to be fought before all the revelations can be made.
The story may sound complicated, but Zhang Yimou is extremely aware of where his characters are positioned strategically, and he leads his audience through the palace with absolute confidence. Along the way, he allows us to gorge on all the marvelous confections our appetites can handle. He is just as concerned with the day to day life of the palace as he is the intrigues of its rulers, and he goes to great lengths to let us peek behind the gorgeous decorations and see the people who set them all up. Every task seems to take three or more workers. Just to get her medicine, the Empress has four servants: one to present the medicine, a second to carry the cleanser for her mouth, a third with the spit cup, and a fourth with towels to wipe her lips. Reteaming with production designer Huo Tingxiao, who collaborated with him on Hero and Flying Daggers, and bringing on costume designer Chung Man Ye (So Close), Yimou has taken precise care to bring the Tang Dynasty to life for modern audiences, effectively erasing the eleven centuries between them. There's never a visually dull or unbelievable moment on screen, Curse of the Golden Flower is always sumptuous viewing.
Curse of the Golden Flower also marks the reunion of Zhang Yimou with Gong Li, who was his muse for most of his early films. Li has always been a tremendously soulful actress. For Empress Phoenix, she is playing a woman who is racing against time. She knows what she must do, and that includes continuing to take the poison so as not to alert her enemy. The fungus is destroying her mind, bringing on more and more violent attacks. Li has to show the ravaging effects of seizures while still maintaining the monarch's vanity. As usual, even as she grows more ashen and fractured, it's impossible to take your eyes off of her.
The most heartbreaking scene for the Empress, however, is not one where the poison is tearing her down, but it's the first time she finds Wan with the servant girl. For a woman in a marriage of convenience who is growing older, it must be agonizing to feel jilted by a lover whom must also call you "mother." When she exposes the tryst, the Empress can barely hold it together. Gong Li, her skin as pale and smooth as an egg, looks like she might shatter.
In addition to Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat, the rest of the cast display exceptional talent. All of the young male actors manage to imbue their princes with an individual personality. Junjie Qin is smarmy and petulant, while Jay Chou displays quiet strength, going from humble warrior to outraged son. (Chou also does double-duty as the performer of the movie's final theme.) As the Crown Prince, Liu Ye is nervous and put-upon, usually looking like he wishes everyone else would just leave him alone, only ever getting comfortable when he is alone with Chan. They have a tender, playful scene together just before the Empress breaks in on them that is both sensual and sweet. Li Man is an alluring new discovery. She is radiant in the small role, and she gets to show a good range. Chan begins as opportunistic and coquettish, but when the chips are down, she proves that she really cares for Wan.
There are only a couple of fight sequences, including a duel between Jay Chou and Chow Yun-Fat where the two men bang on each other with heavy swords. The climax isn't a martial arts showdown, however, but the clashing of two gargantuan armies. As he proved in Hero, Yimou is unparalleled when it comes to putting a lot of troops on the screen. In Golden Flower, the rebels and the Imperial Guard square off within the confining walls of the Palace, right on top of the chrysanthemum beds, and it's a bloodbath.
I could go on and on digging into more and more aspects of Curse of the Golden Flower, but then there would be nothing left for you to go and see. I loved this movie, and I continue to be impressed by the roll Zhang Yimou has been on. (Don't forget, he also released the contemporary family drama Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles this year.) In my assessment, for as riveting of a thrill ride as House of Flying Daggers was (I would liken its plot/identity twists to vintage Hitchcock), Curse of the Golden Flower ratchets up the game by causing those twists to come through tropes of classic tragedy. The result is a plot that is just as involving but with consequences that are far more crushing. When Curse of the Golden Flower took its final breath, it was the first time I felt like I had exhaled for about twenty minutes. In a word: stunning.
Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. His most recent novel is entitled The Everlasting (August 2006), and he penned the original graphic novel 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Rich is also writing the ongoing independent comic book series Love the Way You Love. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li
Last edited by Marla on Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
cocoa
Joined: 05 Aug 2006
Posts: 4044
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
The roller coaster ride continues. They love it, they hate it.
Thanks Marla. (Also, thank you for Highlighting the Gong Li parts)
_________________
_____________________________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
It's too bad that the above review isn't one of the syndicated reviews that would be picked up by many papers.
Meanwhile, V.A. Musetto rates the film 2 out of 4 stars in the NY Post:
| Quote: | December 21, 2006 -- 'Curse of the Golden Flower" could also be called "Curse of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' "
In other words, it is yet another attempt to cash in on the success of Ang Lee's 2000 martial-arts epic, which will go down in the history books as one of the most overrated films of the decade.
Westerners were blown over by "Crouching Tiger," while people knowledgeable about Asian cinema snickered. We knew that movies of this sort have been turned out in Asia for 50 years - and that a lot of the earlier films kicked Lee's ass.
"Curse" is the third martial-arts extravaganza since 2003 by Zhang Yimou, following "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers." (That time period also included "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles," a tear-jerker that Zhang should be ashamed of making.)
The difference now is that "Curse" stars Gong Li, Zhang's longtime romantic and artistic muse; it's the first time they've worked together since the 1995 "Shanghai Triad," one of seven magical love stories they made together.
The setting this time is 10th-century China. The empress (Gong) and emperor (the great Chow Yun Fat, who was in "Crouching Tiger") no longer share the royal bed.
She's having an affair with her stepson, who in turn is carrying on with a younger woman, the daughter of the court doctor.
The emperor, too, is up to no good. He's slowly poisoning the empress with a drug that will drive her bonkers.
She gets wind of his evil doings and plans a coup involving thousands of yellow chrysanthemums.
Gong and Chou emote, emote, emote. They're tremendous, as if there could be any doubt.
But instead of relying on two great actors, Zhang insists upon adding lavish CGI battle scenes. They look phony because they are phony - more like something from a video game than a drama.
Perhaps Gong Li herself put it best when I interviewed her last month.
Speaking of "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," she said:
"You look at Zhang's style and whole body of work, those two films are kind of an experiment for him. One of the things that make him different and special from other directors is the way he tells stories. In those two films, he lost a bit of that."
She quickly added that they "were kind of an experiment to develop what we now have in this film, which puts everything together."
Alas, that's wishful thinking. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cocoa
Joined: 05 Aug 2006
Posts: 4044
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
These two saw the same film? LOL
_________________
_____________________________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:15 am Post subject: |
|
|
From the New York Sun:
| Quote: | Kicking and Screaming in (Bright) Red China
By Nicolas Rapold
December 21, 2006
The lush, regal colors in "Curse of the Golden Flower," Zhang Yimou's new martial-arts melodrama, run like the kaleidoscopic drizzle off a melting sno-cone. Set in the Later Tang Dynasty of the 10th century, the tale of palace intrigue and incest almost drowns in opulent décor, brocaded robes, and gleaming swords. It's a film for anyone who somehow found the color-guard dazzle of the Chinese director's earlier period epic, "Hero," not bold enough.
Mr. Yimou's trick with "Hero" (and 2004's "House of Flying Daggers") was to make over the scrappy wuxia film of old with a sumptuous aesthetic, modulated storytelling, and top-notch talent. "Curse of the Golden Flower" is another such attempt, starring the redoubtable team of Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat as an Empress and Emperor embroiled in mutual treachery and many layers of fabric.
The premise and mood is soap opera Shakespeare, with a taste of Shaw Brothers: aristocratic hysteria and deception over sex and succession. The Empress has been sleeping with her stepson, the Crown Prince (Liu Ye), but the meek youth wants out. His brother, the second in line (Jay Chou), returns from battle and poses a threat with his golden-boy competence. Meanwhile, the Emperor has been giving his wife medicine that makes her shake and glare like an enraged diva, which is Ms. Li's demeanor for most of the film anyway.
The royal doctor's scar-faced wife has something urgent to say about this, as does his daughter, the Crown Prince's secret love, but the Emperor ships them off to a province. At the palace, there is much prowling of corridors and trembling of lips in close-up. Except for a welcome-home mock fight between father and son, rendered in sensual sparks of clashing armor, the movie's first half feels room-bound and plotted like a television series.
When the Emperor and the Empress set in motion their separate revenge plans — and warriors — the film erupts with whirling action set pieces and notso-shocking disclosures. He sends a whispery, high-flying cloud of ninjas to dispatch the royal doctor's wife. She rolls out a massive armed conspiracy during the upcoming Chong Yang festival, celebrated with chrysanthemums.
When the story's action opens up, it should be the movie's bread and butter, since, heaven knows, the uneven acting isn't. But Mr. Yimou's direction no longer looks backward to the control he displayed in the 1990's art-house triumphs that first brought him international renown ("Raise the Red Lantern," "Ju Dou"). Instead, a sealed-off, compartmentalized quality to the shots and the storytelling point to Mr. Yimou's more current projects: a gig as director of an opera for the Met in New York, and his recent commission to direct the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
These are arias performed with blades (and, in one case bordering on camp, a belt), and they do jolt one awake, especially when Mr. Chow springs to action like a crafty lion finally roused. But when the Empress's raising of an army shifts the stage to the vast courtyard of the palace, the uniform mass of warriors resembles a CGIenhanced rally. The replica of the Forbidden City feels studio bound, and under Mr. Yimou's swooping camera, the battles and the festival seem to take place in a world that ends abruptly at the backdrop horizons.
Another unwelcome effect of the stadium-like setting and the faceless uniformity of the marching soldiers is a fascistic flavor, infused with the pageantry and anticipation of the chrysanthemum festival. You could probably cobble together a political critique out of the movie's unappealingly brutal internecine conflict. Indeed, many blasted "Hero" as a nationalist allegory, and said even worse about Mr. Yimou's cordial relations with his government. But really it's all just numbing, an exponential expansion of the movie's earliest scenes, where squads of palace servants dress in drum-beat unison. Why do anything with 15 people when 1,500 will do?
Of the actors (besides the callow supporting players), Hong Kong action legend Mr. Chow certainly looks like he thinks it's good to be the king, but only Ms. Li has the presence and focus to break out. In the past few years she has specialized in films that set her off — steely, coolly placid, sultry like a quickening fever — against attempts at rapturous excess: "Miami Vice," "2046," and "Memoirs of a Geisha." "Curse of the Golden Flower" is not exactly a garden where characters grow, but Ms. Li expresses both the righteous rage and essential powerlessness as the Emperor's wife.
At the end, festival fireworks explode over the palace, feeling a bit self-congratulatory and insistent. Mr. Yimou knows enough to end on a big closer, and the screen fades out on a final bloodspatter flourish on the royal pavilion raised high above the palace court. Here's hoping that the director, whose last film, "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles," was small but satisfying, comes back down to earth soon. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
Yes, it's like being on a roller coaster. I never know what to expect when I start reading one of these, LOL.
| Quote: | By Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
December 21, 2006
Cold cruel passion and wicked court intrigue are portrayed with a sensuous visual splendor in "Curse of the Golden Flower," the latest period film of the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou. It's an incredible film, among the strangest and most overwhelming that Zhang has made. And it unfolds--during the Later Tang Dynasty (923-936 AD), a time of corruption, dictatorship and warfare -- with a dark, stylized brilliance and an almost insane excess that will bewilder a good part of the audience and exhilarate others.
Don't judge the film too quickly, though. It really is like almost nothing you've seen before.
Zhang has been startling us since his early films, from the sexually intense chamber dramas such as "Red Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern"--both of which starred this film's ravishing empress, Gong Li-- right up to his jaw-dropping recent period action epics "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers." But here, he and his extraordinary action director, Tony Ching Siu-Tung, seem to be vaulting past previous limits and rules.
As we watch, stunned, a bloody Jacobean tide of murder, adultery, incest and rebellion pours through the chambers of a glorious palace, into a courtyard covered with millions of golden cut chrysanthemums. Through the corridors prowl a cast of royal schemers and victims. That sinister ensemble includes an evil emperor (Chow Yun Fat), his desperate wife (Gong Li), his three wildly contrasting sons and heirs (Liu Ye, Jay Chou and Qin Junjie), the troubled imperial doctor (Ni Dahong) and the doctor's bitter wife (Chen Jin) and naive daughter (Li Man), both of whom have secrets that could destroy an empire.
Outside, the passions of that court elite infect the huge legions of warriors under their control, and a storm of conflict rages between rival armies. Two immense companies of slaughter -- battalions of flashing swordsmen, deadly archers, leaping ninjas and whirling martial artists--hurl themselves at each other in Busby Berkeley clockwork patterns that seem to have been choreographed by some mad genius of dance and death.
Battlemaster Ching, one of the finest action directors in the world, surpasses himself here. We never see any individuals among these warriors. Instead, they swing like spiders from the dark cliffs of a mountain pass ambush, or flood over the courtyard in successive waves of turbulent black and gold, leaving heaps of corpses on that mantle of crushed golden petals. These are the nameless, almost faceless minions of tyranny--and Zhang, who co-wrote the script, shows once again how evil can spread like disease among rulers whose power has no sensible limit.
The cast is a memorable ensemble. Among the emperor's brood, Jay Chou, who plays the good, heroic middle son, Prince Jai, is a huge Taiwanese-Chinese pop star who effortlessly holds the screen. Liu and Qin, bookending him as the older and younger brothers, are effectively softer and weaker, like John Cazale's Fredo in "The Godfather." Chen Jin, as the doctor's wife, radiates a bone-chilling fury and melancholy.
With his Clark Gable-style impudent macho and her Greta Garbo-like goddess beauty, Chow and Gong are two of the biggest Asian movie stars ever. And their mutual charisma here shivers the screen, though not in the way you'd expect. Gong does play another victim, her one-time specialty for Zhang. Slowly being poisoned through much of the movie, she projects a vulnerability that makes her role more poignant.
But Chow plays the emperor as a genial bully, with a look that suggests not the brash gangster Chow of "The Killer" and "A Better Tomorrow" but a mean-eyed old character actor such as Albert Dekker in "The Wild Bunch."
Zhang, whose powers are at their height here, gives the interior scenes of "Curse" the dramatic beauty and precision of a Kenji Mizoguchi film ("Yang Kwei Fei"), while his amazing action-director colleague Ching stages the fights with a flair and energy that at times suggests Kurosawa ("Ran") mixed with John Woo.
Those are lofty cinematic comparisons, but, in some ways, this film is near that aesthetic level. It's a work by cinematic geniuses that reveals beauty and terror in a long-ago time with a virtuoso intensity. You won't soon forget its mad, lovely sights and sounds. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
From Now Toronto:
| Quote: | Review by John Harkness (2 out of 4 stars)
John Grierson once declared, in reference to Josef von Sternberg, "When a director dies, he becomes a cinematographer."
The great Chinese director Zhang Yimou began his career as a cinematographer, but with Curse Of The Golden Flower he's become an art director, and this film is a prime piece of fabric porn.
Set in the Forbidden City during the Tang Dynasty (10th century), the film deals with massive eruptions of jealousy, murder and incestuous sex in the royal family, which lets Zhang wander endlessly through the elaborately painted and fabric-strewn corridors of the palace.
About the third time a character and his or her retinue stride down a hall done in simmering shades of pink, lilac, gold and green, I thought, "This is why I stopped doing acid."
They could legitimately call this thing Dynasty, in both the royal succession and Aaron Spelling senses of the word, with Gong Li set on high diva as the empress who's having an affair with her husband's first son, while her husband is slowly poisoning her and she's manoeuvring to put her own son on the throne.
And it looks fabulous.
People expecting the kind of martial arts spectacular Zhang delivered in Hero and House Of Flying Daggers had best look elsewhere. This is an imperial family drama with some battle scenes but none of the electrifying individual confrontations that are the hallmark of a great martial arts film. Indeed, it runs a whole hour with but a single non-lethal faceoff between the Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) and Prince Jie (Jay Chou).
It's very well constructed. All the things that are set up in the first hour pay off in the second. If you liked The Emperor And The Assassin, directed by Zhang's mentor, Chen Kaige, you'll probably like Curse Of The Golden Flower, which has an even madder Gong Li performance and a more retina-shredding colour scheme.
But it's definitely for people who like their melodrama over-the-top.
Note to Zhang: If you're going to bring in the ninja-like assassin squad an hour into the picture and give them six kinds of impossible physical moves, you have to make us believe this is a world where that might happen. Nothing in the first hour of Curse Of The Golden Flower establishes this Chinese historical setting as one of those worlds. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
From MonstersAndCritics.com:
| Quote: | Review by Maura Reilley
True to form, Zhang Yimou once again gives the audience a sumptuous feast of color and texture in his third action film ‘The Curse of the Golden Flower.’ Like its two predecessors, “Curse” is a costume drama this time set in the twilight years of the Tang dynasty in China. It’s a tale of deception, revenge, and murder most foul…you know, the typical family drama.
The story opens on the eve of the Chrysanthemum Festival as the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) and his second son Prince Jai (Asian Pop Star Jay Chou) return to an ailing Empress (Gong Li), a brooding Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), an always watchful youngest son Prince Yu (Qin Junjie) and to an Imperial Palace rife with scandalous affairs and suspicions of poisoning. An unexpected face from the past sets in motion murderous plots and accusations – all which culminate in a bloody coup in the courtyard of the Palace.
"Curse" is an overly ambitious film. The visual palette is a combination of gold and deep, rich primary colors which convey the majesty and opulence of the time. But it feels as if more attention was given to making the costumes and sets authentic than to anything else.
While 'House of Flying Daggers' (2004) surpassed 'Hero' (2002) in terms of production design and story, Curse over-extends itself using poorly realized CGI to give a sense of insurmountable numbers and gut slicing violence. Zhang may have been better off just focusing on the intrigue of the royal family and leaving out the at times tedious, tacked-on fight scenes.
With a title like 'Curse of the Golden Flower' I hope you weren’t expecting a happy ending.
This is calamity of the first order: we’re talking Shakespeare on his darkest day, true Greek tragedy froth with self-loathing and self-recrimination. There are elements of King Lear, Othello, and Hamlet as well as Oedipus in this story. What seems to be the most obvious cinematic comparison is to 'The Lion in Winter' (1968): family members set against each other in deadly battle for control of the throne.
The principle players are portrayed as characters in a melodrama which will be off-putting for some theater-goers. Chow Yun Fat is charismatic as always and Gong Li gives the icy Empresses flashes of fire and madness and displays her ample décolletage with grace. Apparently at this time in Chinese history it was all about the cleavage.
Well it proves a much needed distraction from what’s missing in this movie: a heart. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
From Newsday:
| Quote: | Cursed in the Tang Dynasty
BY GENE SEYMOUR
So what do we have here? Mom seduced her stepson, who now wants little or nothing more to do with her. Dad found out about her fling and seeks payback by slowly and deliberately poisoning her. One of the other sons finds out about Dad's plan and wants to stop him. Meanwhile, the stepson's real mother comes out of hiding and Dad wants her done away with because of some dark secret. Incest of some sort may be involved.
You could be forgiven for thinking that the above was a scenario for a British Jacobean play or a story arc for an American prime-time soap. But in Zhang Yimou's "Curse of the Golden Flower," all this juicy stuff is going on in China, specifically the Tang Dynasty where the Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) and Empress (Gong Li) hold forth over as whacked-out a court as you can find in the seamier corridors of "Masterpiece Theatre."
Two years have passed since Zhang was justly feted for his dazzling martial arts epics, "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers." But "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.
Then again, I'm not so sure Zhang doesn't take his movie beyond that level, given the extremes of unseemly behavior exhibited by the aforementioned Emperor, who glowers and grimaces with every brain-devouring dose of fungus he orders injected into his tightly wound Empress' daily "medicine."
Chow makes a persuasive, even explicable villain, but not even he can compete with Gong's mercurial flamboyance. And neither of them can really compete with the surging computer-generated waves of armed guards slicing and goring each other outside the walls of the Imperial Palace. It's all too ludicrous to absorb, but it's luscious to watch. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cocoa
Joined: 05 Aug 2006
Posts: 4044
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | It's all too ludicrous to absorb, but it's luscious to watch. |
LMAO!! oooooooook.
_________________
_____________________________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
Did I posted this one before? Sorry if it's a repeat. It was posted today on Film Journal International:
| Quote: | By Ethan Alter
Pardon the momentary lapse into geek-speak, but Zhang Yimou's latest wu xia spectacle Curse of the Golden Flower is ten kinds of awesome. An enormously entertaining martial-arts melodrama, the film resembles nothing less than Hamlet as written by Tennessee Williams and set in 10th-century China with lots of rockin' swordplay and some sweet-ass spider-ninjas. Actually, Zhang's movie is based on a play, although not one penned by Messrs. Shakespeare or Williams. The source material is Thunderstorm, a 1933 drama by renowned Chinese playwright Cao Yu about a wealthy businessman with a seriously screwed-up home life. In adapting the play to the screen, Zhang has swapped the 1930s for the Tang Dynasty and transformed the businessman into an emperor (played by Chow Yun-Fat). Otherwise, the director claims to have remained more or less faithful to the text, although it's safe to assume that the stage version didn't climax with a brilliantly staged battle between the Emperor's army and a faction of rebels led by his second son Prince Jai (Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou).
The circumstances that bring about that rebellion are too juicy to reveal in full detail. Much of the pleasure of watching Curse of the Golden Flower comes from experiencing every melodramatic plot twist as it happens. Suffice it to say, something is rotten with the state of this Imperial Family. While the Emperor and Prince Jai have been away at the battlefront, the Empress (Gong Li) has been growing a little too close to her stepson, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye). Meanwhile, the weak-willed Wan has his eye on a delectable servant girl (Li Man), whose father happens to be the Emperor's trusted physician (Ni Dahong). Following his boss' orders, the doctor has secretly been adding a new ingredient--one that can drive a sane person mad--to a medicinal brew the ailing Empress is made to drink each day. Suspecting that her position in the court is in danger, the Empress launches a scheme to overthrow her husband on the eve of the annual Chong Yang Festival, when the palace is festooned with golden chrysanthemums. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in a plot that also includes another case of incest, numerous betrayals and those aforementioned black-cloth-clad assassins that swing into battle like Spider-Man.
One of the frequent critical knocks against Zhang's previous martial-arts pictures Hero and House of Flying Daggers is that neither possesses a particularly strong narrative to connect lavish action sequences together. Curse of the Golden Flower, on the other hand, has enough incident to fill two movies; there's so much story to get through here that the martial arts take a backseat for the first half of the film, something that may surprise--and possibly upset--those viewers who are going in expecting another Hero. But they can rest assured that the climactic battle, which lasts well over a half-hour, is worth the wait. In fact, this extended sequence is only enhanced by the fact that we've spent so much time with the characters beforehand and have a clear understanding of their motivations and goals.
Curse of the Golden Flower is also the first wu xia epic Zhang has made that recalls the social dramas that put him on the world cinema map. On the surface, this historical pageant, set in a fantasy-like version of the Tang Dynasty, would seem to be the antithesis of films like The Story of Qiu Ju and To Live, which strove for a sense of realism that often landed the director in trouble with the Chinese government. Yet there are some striking similarities between Golden Flower and his earlier features, the most obvious one being the presence of his former muse Gong Li, working with Zhang for the first time since 1995's Shanghai Triad. Beyond that, there's a bleak cynicism running underneath all of the melodrama that brings to mind his 1992 masterpiece Raise the Red Lantern. As in that film, there are no heroes in this tale and, in the end, none of the characters walks away truly victorious. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but fortunately it's chased down with just the right mixture of spectacle and showmanship. And that's damn cool. |
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cocoa
Joined: 05 Aug 2006
Posts: 4044
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
Marla, This the weirdest thing I have ever seen. We have reviews that says it has NO story and we have reviews that say it all about story. LOL
_________________
_____________________________________ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
NewPath
Joined: 22 May 2006
Posts: 1334
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:54 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | The most heartbreaking scene for the Empress, however, is not one where the poison is tearing her down, but it's the first time she finds Wan with the servant girl. |
That's my favorite scene in the movie too. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mimichat
Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 11
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
| One fact about the film is that although in all English reviews and on the official English website CYF and GL's roles are referred to as Emperor and Empress, they are actually called King and Queen in the film. The so called "late Tang Dynasty" actually refers to a transition period between Tang and Song Dynasties, which is called "The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period". It was a time when China was divided into a dozen or a score of kingdoms and entered a period of warlodism. In the film, CYF, in his conversation with GL, mentions that he treats her with respect because she is the daughter of the King of Liang, which implies that theirs was a political marriage from the very beginning and this tells a lot about the source of the Empress' despair and bitterness and her eventual fall for the emperor's eldest son. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Marla
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 5198
Location: The O.C.
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | In the film, CYF, in his conversation with GL, mentions that he treats her with respect because she is the daughter of the King of Liang, which implies that theirs was a political marriage from the very beginning and this tells a lot about the source of the Empress' despair and bitterness and her eventual fall for the emperor's eldest son. |
I hope others watching the film will pick up on that (as I did). It does help to explain the relationship between the two.
.
_________________
"A 'star' sounds crazy. It is only the work of everyone around a star that makes it shine. One should not overrate oneself; otherwise, the light goes out very fast." ~Gong Li |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
