Curse of the Golden Flower

Zhang Yimou's third martial arts epic (after Hero and House of Flying Daggers) is essentially Dallas or Dynasty transported to 10th-century China. The plot focuses on the intricate domestic affairs of the Tang dynasty in 928 A.D.: the Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) is attempting to poison his current wife the Empress (Gong Li), who is having an affair with her stepson the Crown Prince (Liu Ye), although the young man secretly loves the daughter of the physician who's administering the Empress' fatal brew. Meanwhile, the Empress is fomenting a rebellion—involving the elder of her two sons—to coincide with the upcoming chrysanthemum festival. The scorpions-in-a-bottle relationships among the royals set off a whole series of intrigues, double and triple crosses, reversals and confrontations, with the topper being a grand battle between two huge armies on a field of mums in the palace courtyard (making for lots of striking red-on-yellow imagery as gallons of blood are spilled). While it's impossible to take any of these characters (whose machinations make the Carringtons and Ewings look like pikers) very seriously, the visual opulence of their world is breathtaking. In this sense, Curse of the Golden Flower is a mesmerizing achievement, its overwrought dramatics ultimately redeemed by the purely sensual pleasure of its imagery. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 22-minute “Secrets Within” making-of featurette, three minutes of footage from the Los Angeles premiere, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a colorful if outrageously melodramatic tale.] (F. Swietek)