WORLDVIEW

Milos Stehlik's Commentaries

The Curse of the Golden Flower

(Transcript)
Originally broadcast December 22, 2006

	Milos Stehlik

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Curse of the Golden Flower, the third of Zhang Yimou’s martial arts films, follows Hero and The House of Flying Daggers. It’s a film that should be seen without any preconceptions about the historical or martial arts genre or, for that matter, the work of Zhang Yimou. Taken at its face value as a highly original and beautifully executed concept—the real pleasures and artistry of Curse of the Golden Flower unfold.

The plot is far too complicated and full of twists to reveal, but the setting is the 10th century, on the eve of the Chong Yang or Chrystanthemum festival. The chamber drama revolves around the Emperor, played by Chow Yun Fat, and the Empress, played by Gong Li, and the Emperor’s three sons. Each of these five characters harbors his or her own ambitions, fears, loves and hatreds. After numerous betrayals, these explode as the Chrystanthemum festival begins.

The most interesting and most complex character here is that of the Empress—an aging woman desperate for love and then out for retribution. She is brilliantly played by Gong Li. Li plays the role so seamlessly that the psychological contradictions, the Empress’s lust, pain, anger, cunning and vengefulness are internalized, but seem almost physically present in Gong Li’s face. She creates drama just with her rapid stride down the gilt-encrusted hallways of the palace on her high platform shoes.

But Curse of the Golden Flower is not really a film about character, just as the martial arts scenes—which range from black-hooded assassins attacking by swinging from high wires to massive assemblies of thousands of charging, golden-armored warriors—are not the focal point.

Zhang Yimou, a filmmaker who gained his reputation with intimate social dramas like Judou and Raise the Red Lantern fell afoul of the Chinese government after daring political films, especially To Live. This was a brave and courageous history of a family living through the tumultuous years of Mao’s rise to power, the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution.

Effectively banned from filmmaking, he spent some years making peace with the Chinese government by directing rather sentimental apolitical dramas like The Road Home and Happy Times. Then he turned to the martial arts genre.

Despite its pileup of dead bodies, The Curse of The Golden Flower goes beyond this genre into new territory. The film is highly stylized. At its heart is a melodrama of family vengeance. It is set in garish colors of opulent excess. Its musical score, composed by Shigeru Umebayashi, is a virtual orchestral suite, often contrapuntal to the action. It is at the same time an intimate melodrama, largely set within the confines of the Imperial palace. It rapidly shifts from lavish spectacle—thousands of beautifully costumed CGI extras—to symbolic close-ups—a cup thrown into the air spills poisonous liquid which is suspended in slow motion in the air, a drop of blood falls onto the petals of a golden chrysanthemum.

This world of total artifice requires the same absolute suspension of belief as the world of opera. Curse of the Golden Flower resembles nothing so much as an operatic construct. In fact, in a few weeks, Zhang Yimou’s production of The First Emperor, an opera by Tan Dun, opens at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In Curse of the Golden Flower, passions are almost always at fever pitch. Loyalty, betrayal, assassins, spies, lovers, incest, poison, humiliation, suicide mix in rapid succession. Beauty and blood, love and death unfold against the claustrophobic, highly ordered landscape of the imperial palace and its prerogative of power.

It doesn’t have to make logical sense. Curse of the Golden Flower, like opera, creates its own reality. It just is. A work of art, beauty – and fun to watch.

This is Milos Stehlik for Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview.

“Worldview” film contributor Milos Stehlik is the director of Facets Multimedia.

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