Curse of the Golden Flower

Julie (my wife) is in Atlanta tonight on a business trip. That's a pretty unusual occurrence, since she's a floral designer who has never traveled at all on behalf of her employer, but they decided to send her and a couple of colleagues on a buying trip to the ATL. Believe it or not, their task is to order Christmas decorative supplies that will be delivered this coming July and retailed shortly after that. I thought we just got past all that Christmas holiday stuff!

But anyway, that left me with a lot of free time on my hands tonight. It was just Derek and I at home, with my twin sons working and my daughter at her dorm. So we decided to take in a flick. I was leaning toward "Children of Men" but Derek is pretty interested in China, since he traveled there this past summer. So he suggested "Curse of the Golden Flower," which I had heard about but wasn't really tracking all that closely. Still, I enjoyed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero" (and "Kung Fu Hustle," while I'm at it!) so I figured that was a good choice.

I know I just raved about "King of Kings" yesterday (and again today in another comment) so I'll keep my fan-boy tendencies in check here. Let me just say that if you are in the mood for incredibly vivid, colorful pageantry and a big dose of Asian palace intrigues, this is the movie for you. It's an amazing visual feast - the sets, the costumes, the martial arts action (though this is not a "kung fu flick" - the other movies I mentioned above are superior offerings along that line, though this one has some monumental battle scenes, albeit with a lot of CGI assistance.) The acting per se isn't all that exceptional - the characterizations are more "operatic" than "dramatic" - but the actors are gorgeous - especially the two leading women, Gong Li and Man Li!

The story may not connect very well with many in the Western audience - there's nothing close to the kind of tidy resolution or predictable settling of scores that we're used to in our Hollywood productions, but that's part of what I liked about it. A chance to venture more deeply into the lore of a different culture, though I imagine that this isn't Chinese story-telling along strictly traditional lines either. It's an idealized fantasy, even a postmodern mash-up of sorts, carrying it's own commentary to Asian and Western audiences alike about the perils of centralized power (imperial or otherwise) and the devastating effects that such power has on people and nations when it becomes an end in itself.

To some people, this will be a phenomenal masterpiece, while others may find it elusively less-than-satisfying. I think it's worth checking out on account of its production values at least, and more highly recommended if you enjoyed earlier Chinese costume epics.