满城尽带黄金甲 - The Curse of the Golden Flower
Zhang Yimou (Dir), Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou
The Curse of the Golden Flower is set to be Zhang Yimou's latest bid for Best Foreign Film at this year's Oscars. A typically stylish, visually sumptuous period drama based telling the story of a Tang dynasty Emperor whose thirst for power results in the death of his three sons, Golden Flower has attracted a great deal of attention, much of it for its unusually revealing costumes (Critics Rip into Golden Flower's Bodices, Guardian Dec 20, 2006). Based on a play by Yu Cao, the film has all the ingredients that make imperial dramas so cinematically appealing: elaborate sets, visually stunning set pieces, beautiful costumes, internecine power struggles, decadence, love, incest, patricide, filicide, martial arts... But Golden Flower is more than just another period martial arts drama. In fact, unlike Zhang's previous films, House of Flying Daggers and Hero, there is much less focus on elaborately choreographed swordfights, in favour of emphasizing the ritual of imperial life, in a manner reminiscent of Raise the Red Lantern. As with many of Zhang's films, plot is far from everything and the plot is, at times, rather obtuse. The story focuses on Gong Li's empress, the emperor's second wife and mother of his two younger sons, who, upon realizing that she is slowly being poisoned at the behest of her husband, hatches a plot to kill the emperor on the night of the Chrysanthemum festival, pleading with her eldest son (played by Taiwanese actor/singer Jay Chou) to lead the assault and take over the reign.
The main characters are sadly not very fully developed; Chow Yun Fat's emperor is disappointingly two-dimensional, while his first son, subject of the illicit and unrequited affections of the empress, is more like a straight line, not helped by some pretty poor acting by Qin Junjie. But the film is all about Gong Li. After some pretty average Hollywood distractions in Memoirs of a Geisha and the absurd Miami Vice, she's back on form in a captivating performance that holds the film together. Empress Phoenix is a perfect blend of seductiveness, imperiousness, deceit and despair, all of which which Gong Li excels at. If you only need one reason to watch this movie, let it be Gong Li........
The Curse of the Golden Flower is set to be Zhang Yimou's latest bid for Best Foreign Film at this year's Oscars. A typically stylish, visually sumptuous period drama based telling the story of a Tang dynasty Emperor whose thirst for power results in the death of his three sons, Golden Flower has attracted a great deal of attention, much of it for its unusually revealing costumes (Critics Rip into Golden Flower's Bodices, Guardian Dec 20, 2006). Based on a play by Yu Cao, the film has all the ingredients that make imperial dramas so cinematically appealing: elaborate sets, visually stunning set pieces, beautiful costumes, internecine power struggles, decadence, love, incest, patricide, filicide, martial arts... But Golden Flower is more than just another period martial arts drama. In fact, unlike Zhang's previous films, House of Flying Daggers and Hero, there is much less focus on elaborately choreographed swordfights, in favour of emphasizing the ritual of imperial life, in a manner reminiscent of Raise the Red Lantern. As with many of Zhang's films, plot is far from everything and the plot is, at times, rather obtuse. The story focuses on Gong Li's empress, the emperor's second wife and mother of his two younger sons, who, upon realizing that she is slowly being poisoned at the behest of her husband, hatches a plot to kill the emperor on the night of the Chrysanthemum festival, pleading with her eldest son (played by Taiwanese actor/singer Jay Chou) to lead the assault and take over the reign.
The main characters are sadly not very fully developed; Chow Yun Fat's emperor is disappointingly two-dimensional, while his first son, subject of the illicit and unrequited affections of the empress, is more like a straight line, not helped by some pretty poor acting by Qin Junjie. But the film is all about Gong Li. After some pretty average Hollywood distractions in Memoirs of a Geisha and the absurd Miami Vice, she's back on form in a captivating performance that holds the film together. Empress Phoenix is a perfect blend of seductiveness, imperiousness, deceit and despair, all of which which Gong Li excels at. If you only need one reason to watch this movie, let it be Gong Li........
Labels: Chow Yun Fat, films, Gong Li, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Jay Chou, Memoirs of a Geisha, Miami Vice, Raise the Red Lantern, The Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou
posted by CCT at 1:16 pm
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