A Powerful Chinese Drama
Curse of the Golden Flower is set during the Tang Dynasty of China, when the emperor, played by the incomparable Chow Yun-Fat, was the ultimate ruler. Curse tells the story of the emperor, his wife played by Gong Li, and their three children. It’s hard to be very detailed about the story without giving away too much, but I don’t know that I have ever seen a film with such deep-rooted betrayal and vengeance between characters. This climaxes very suddenly on the night of the Chrysanthemum festival; chrysanthemums being, of course, the golden flowers. The entire story is a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions and beyond.
The story is more than enough to get you hooked into the film from start to finish, but the gorgeous visuals and authentic dialogue are helpful to that end as well. Costume and set design is astounding and extravagant. The emperor’s golden armor was my favorite; Chow Yun-Fat mentions in the ‘making of’ feature that it weighed about sixty pounds, which is why you won’t see him move a lot in that armor. Gong Li’s costumes are very finely detailed and most, if not all of the costumes were hand made, too. The effort that went into the set design and costumes is apparent and one of the most remarkable parts about the movie.
Extras
The extras on this release are few in number, but they aren’t too bad. Totaling about twenty-five minutes, there is a LA Premiere extra, which shows some of the film’s stars and the director at the LA premiere and they are interviewed briefly for their thoughts. Then there is a nice ‘making of’ feature that includes interviews with the main players in the cast and director Zhang Yimou.