Curse of the Golden Flower

As mentioned previously, after seeing The Forbidden Kingdom I had a hunger for more Chinese movies and I'd gone DVD shopping. I picked up Curse of the Golden Flower starring Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li.

It proved to be very enjoyable (if not a happy adventure). Oddly, at heart it was the story of a dysfunctional family. Great acting all around (how come Chinese pop singers make the jump to film so much better than English ones?) and lavish production.

The battle scenes reminded me of the comparison to leaders moving chess pieces although, as the battles progressed, you felt it was more like an imperial (and body count lethal) version of rock, paper, scissors. You thought one side was winning (the rock) then the other side would pull out the paper, then the first side would pull out a lethal pair of scissors.

It also made me think more positively of the royal palaces of China (like in the Forbidden City) - suddenly it looked like a killing field much like the entrances to classic castles like Carmarthen (which, when you know how their defences worked are very scary). So much for purely ceremonial.

The film also reminded me of European period dramas with (in a surprise for Chinese dramas) bodice popping (nice bodices).

But it was about a dysfunctional family that came to a rather gruesome finish after almost (oddly) Secrets and Lies style revelations. The only thing I wanted to know is what brought about the poisoning - a kind of chicken and egg situation, or 3rd wife on the way?

Anyway, the DVD came to an end and I was just about to enjoy the DVD extras when I had to sit through another f*&^ing FACT anti-piracy advert - screwing up my viewing pleasure. So, instead of downloading it from the internet, or buying a bootleg copy, I bought a legit version (from HMV - the newly branded Zavvi is such a lame sounding brand, pity they had to drop the Virgin Megastore name) and instead of getting cinematic joy (as I probably would have from the pirated versions) I got a rude, crude, crappily marketed interruption telling me I shouldn't pirate when I'm not. Almost an encouragement to get the illegal copies.

At least mute worked!

The DVD extras were OK though - seeing Chow Yun Fat kidding away (despite his very serious role in the film, you kept expecting him to crack a joke or a charming smile) and the interviews with the other actors and the director. They did awfully well not to mention Gong Li's relationship (for 10 years) with the director when they said they hadn't worked together for 10 years (they stopped working together when they split). Obviously they're real professionals to keep that working OK when they did this film.

I gave it a 8 out of 10.