Film Review
– Curse of the Golden Flower
Curse
of the Golden Flower is a Chinese epic drama film written and directed by Zhang
Yimou. This film was released on year 2006. It was the most expensive Chinese
film to that time. Jay Chou who is the famous singer and song composer nowadays
had composed a song for this film by the name “菊花台”(Chrysanthemum
Terrace).
The film starts with the
Emperor(Chow Yun-fat) returns from his military campaigns with his second son
and general, Prince Jai(Jay Chou), in order to celebrate the holiday with his
family. The yellow chrysanthemum flowers fill the imperial palace on the eve of
Zhong Yang.
On a day, the Emperor
found his first son, Crown Prince Wan(Liu Ye) had an illicit affair with the
Empress(Gong Li). The Crown Prince Wan is the stepson of the Empress, who was
born between the Emperor and his dead first wife. Actually the Emperor first
wife, Jiang Shi(Chen Jin) has not dead yet, she had married with the imperial
doctor Jiang Yiru. The Crown Prince Wan is not interested with the Empress and
wishes to run away with his secret lover, Jiang Chan(Li Man), the daughter if
the imperial doctor Jiang Yiru. The Emperor take action by ordering the
imperial doctor and his daughter to poison the Empress’s medicine in order to
want his wife’s health stay poor.
Day by day, after the
Empress have told his son, Prince Jai about the action took by his father, the
Emperor, Prince Jai becomes worried over his mother, the Empress’s ill health
and wonders why she seems to be obsessed with golden chrysanthemums. The
Empress summons Prince Jai and reveals that she planning to overthrow the Emperor.
She asks him to lead his soldiers but Prince Jai hesitates that he cannot
betray his own father. However, he has change his mind because he see his mother
who is suffering from poisoned medicine.
Other than that, the
Empress also hires a mysterious woman to find out the poison’s species. Finally
she found it out successfully and reveals that it is Persian Black Fungus.
Unfortunately, Crown Prince Wan captures the woman and takes her to the Emperor
right after she meet the Empress. The woman had been identified by the Emperor.
The Emperor decided not to punish her and promote the imperial doctor, Jiang Yiru
and his family to governor of the nearby province of Suzhou.
Crown Prince Wan is sad
that the doctor’s daughter is leaving and he runs after their convoy and speaks
to her, and heard that the Empress has woven ten thousands of scarves adorned with
chrysanthemum motifs, sending them to a general of the imperial army afterwards.
Crown Prince Wan rushes back to the palace and confronts the Empress, who
confesses that she is planning a coup d’etat. Crown Prince Wan stabs himself
with a dagger.
The doctor’s family is
attacked by the Emperor’s assassins. The doctor is killed but the doctor’s wife
and daughter flee on horseback and head to the palace successfully. The
Chrysanthemum ceremony is interrupt by the doctor’s wife and his daughter and
demand the Emperor to give an answer about why he wants them whole family to be
killed. At the same time, the Empress reveals that the doctor’s wife is same
woman as the Emperor dead first wife, which means that the doctor’s daughter
and Crown Prince Wan are half-siblings all the time. The doctor’s daughter was
very sad and flees the palace but cut down by the assassins.
Suddenly, the youngest
son, Prince Yu kills Crown Prince Wan with a sword and after that he summons a
group of his own soldiers to kill the Emperor. He reveals that he knew about
the Empress’s affair and has been planning to supplant the Emperor. However,
the Emperor’s assassins descend from the ceiling and killed the Prince Yu’s
soldiers easily. The Emperor beats Prince Yu to dealth with his belt.
At the same time, ten
thousand soldiers wearing golden armor and golden chrysanthemum emblems storm
the palace with the leading of Prince Jai. They easily come into the palace’s
inner square, trampling the golden flowers laid out for the ceremony. Unfortunately,
the massive silver shields block their way in and thousand of the silver
armored archers appear on the walls surrounding them. The golden armor soldiers
try to fight but the silver shields is impenetrable and forced them to retreat
but they founf the gates behind them has been blocked. All of them are dead
under the archers except the Prince Jai. Actually Crown Prince Wan had told the
Emperor and he had set the trap beforehand.
The Prince Jai was
captured and brought to see the Emperor. Meanwhile, the countryard is cleaned
up with efficiency by a legion of servants. The dead bodies had being removed,
floors being scrubbed and laid with carpets, and pots of yellow chrysanthemums
replaced. It makes it seem like nothing had happened before that. The Chrysanthemum
Festival begins as scheduled at the midnight.
The Emperor speaks to Prince
Jai and the Empress on the terrace’s ceremonial table. Prince Jai is offered forgiveness
by his father, the Emperor on the condition that he should serve the poisoned
medicine to the Empress everyday. Prince Jai refuses and apologises to his mother,
the Empress and suicide with a sword. The poisoned cup is still offered to the
Empress on the time, she shrieks and slaps it away. The story ended with the
spilled medicine is shown instantly corroding the table’s engraved wooden
chrysanthemum.
In my opinion, the chrysanthemum
is the most attractive things in the film. The chrysanthemum design is very
conspicuous and I like it very much. The film brought out some moral values
that we should respect to our parents, husband or wife and so on. The film also
shows that the people in the dynasty and the things happened in the palace in
the ancient times. The art designs for overall film are awesome. I think that
the director Zhang Yimou had put many effort on this film. The film had won a
lot of prizes in 26th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2007 with the best
actress(Gong Li, the Empress), the art direction, the best costume and make up
design, and the best original song( “菊花台” by Jay Chou). The
golden armor costume and the golden chrysanthemum are the major things in this
film, I like it very much. I strongly recommend all of you to watch this film
because it is really beautiful and attractive art design. You will not regret after
watched it. Hope all of you enjoy the movie very much. J
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