Curse of the Golden Flower (满城尽带黄金甲)
I watched the movie on my own today. My first time watching a movie alone, and it was totally no biggie. It’s probably not even worth putting it on your list of “Things to do before you die”, but because somehow we have constructed our society such that going to the movies alone equates to being a loser, thus we only watch a movie in the cinema if we’ve got a companion. Ok correction, I watched 2 movies solo today. Heh. I wouldn’t ever watch a horror flick alone though. I always need someone to grab. Maybe that should be on my before-i-die list — watch a horror flick alone. The cinema practices discrimination by the way, appealing to customers by letting a guy bring a girl to the movies for free (but one get one free concept, but only apply to a male-female duo). There were some scratches and blips during the screening too, ok whatever.
Anyways, I liked it. I think I give it 4 popcorns out of 5. (Aside: I bought popcorn at the counter but they don’t have sweet/salted choices. Only Strawberry/Chocolate. Hmm, I should have brought my own food or something)
Curse of the Golden Flower (Curse) touches on some themes very close to heart. It mainly revolves around love and family, and actually the whole story is hanging dirty laundry about this royal family, set in late Tang Dynasty, in the Forbidden City. I was rather sad to see that the only bond I depend on now was depicted as shambles in this film, as members of the royal family die one by one. Prior to that, the family wasn’t very together to begin with. There was immense jealousy and resentment amongst the members. The desire for the throne, and various other negative feelings amongst the members including uncondonable love for the stepmother, but which turns out to be better than the incestuous affair with the half-sister.
Cinematic effects were great, as is expected from Zhang Yimou, especially when the imagery of the trampled flowers foreshadows the army in golden armours defeated and looking like the shodden flowers. However, what is the deal with the bosoms? I kept getting distracted by the exposed boobs-squashed flesh, and I had to consciously push my eyes to focus on expressions on the women’s faces instead of watch their boobs jiggling away. Come on, was the Tang Dynasty fashion sense really like that? No wonder the elder son was as horny as to have an affair first with the stepmother and then the half-sister. It’s the outfits I tell you.
The endless manipulation and outwitting of each other between the King and the Queen was rather tasteful to watch, and they looked like directors watching their own plotted schemes. Just when we think the King thought a step further than the Queen, the thought is diminished when the Queen’s troops come charging, and we may silently cheer about the Queen having thought one step ahead, and it is always just at this moment that the King outwits the Queen and emerges the winner of the whole battle as well as the intense mind game.
This movie is a must-see!
I prefer watching Jay Chou in a more expressionless and silently strong character as in Initial D though. His attempts with his struggles in Curse didn’t really suit my taste in this film.
The whole bosom affair caused much discussion, and has created many spoofs! There are many spoofs of the movie online, I guess especially in Chinese websites. They call it 恶搞, quite the trend here.
Try to catch this Chinese movie. I was always skeptical about handing over my money for a Chinese flick, but hey, Zhang Yimou wins awards for qualified reasons.
