Blu-ray disc review: The Curse Of The Golden Flower

Posted on January 21st, 2008 by admin

Curse Of The Golden Flower (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia)

Technical achievements 9.0
Merit purely as a film 5.0
Overall enjoyment 7.0

This is quite an interesting film. We watched it in Blu-Ray on the Playstation 3 which has recently come into our home for evaluation. This film is visually stunning, no question. The details, colors, set design and costumes must be some of the best ever commited to film. The palace of the Forbidden City is amazing, it’s like the 8th wonder of the world. I can’t even imagine what kind of budget this film had; just the costumes and flowers must have run in the millions. It’s absolutely gorgeous. In Blu-Ray on a big 1080p display there are some scenes where the use of CGI is too apparent, but it’s never distracting - not nearly as bad as Spiderman 3, for example. Mostly you just sit watching mesmerized by the orgy of visual cues on screen.

The story revolves around an empress (Gong Li) who is slowly being poisoned by her recently returned husband. She becomes aware of the plot and attempts to rally her sons against him in revenge. As far as the action scenes, they are very well done - the problem being there just isn’t enough of them. The story of treachery and deceit builds very slowly, I think many people may become bored by the first half of this film. Only in its’ final act does this feel like it may be an epic. It does build up to quite a climactic (and tragic) ending, but along the way it gets a bit too domestic and tedious…and there are enough holes in the acting and plot that you have to admit this does not rate so well against the (recent) best films of this genre.

Director Yimou Zhang has perhaps overshot the mark with this insanely ambitious undertaking, and the result is more Heaven’s Gate than Apocalypse Now. It’s by no means a terrible film, but it falls short of expectations. It must be said that Chow Yun Fat is superb as the deplorable emperor. But the supporting cast is rather weak, and the screenplay often feels contrived. Again, this is still a good film, but whereas Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or indeed Yimou Zhang’s own Hero or House Of Flying Daggers would each merit a 9.0+ rating (all near-perfect films and each for their own reasons), I can’t really give Flower more than a 7.0 rating. Definitely worthwhile for the hi-def movie buff.