Be careful what you wish for.
I can't count the times that I've watched a trailer for a film that had all sorts of tension and wished that the entire movie were like that. But you know what? It's like having Christmas every day. No matter how dazzling, it becomes numbingly routine.
That's the reaction I had to the latest martial arts epic from Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which plays like a 114-minute trailer. I'm sure there were moments when there weren't choruses of dramatic chanting in the background while we watched a single tear dramatically streak down a face or some action-packed sequence with people rushing at each other, but I can't remember them. In fact, when there wasn't dramatic chanting and pulsing music creating a "trailer" feeling, there was the constant scream of battles: "Ahhhhhh," "Uhhhhhh," Oyyyy."
And there you have it. Though "Curse of the Golden Flower" has the usual exquisite pageantry and color we've come to expect from recent historical-based Chinese martial arts films, and while the fight sequences are interesting to watch, there are just too many extended moments without enough different camera angles spliced in to give some sense of variety or varied pacing. There are also too many melodramatic moments--so many, in fact, that it feels like a soap opera that just happens to be set in 928 A.D. Instead of "Dynasty," we get the dysfunctional Tang Dynasty, where mom (the Empress Phoenix, played by Gong Li) is having an affair with her son, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye) . . . but wait, he's not her birth son, just the son of Emperor Ping (Yun-Fat). Does the emperor know, or not? If not, then why does he insist that the empress keep taking her daily "medicine," which causes her to double over in pain?
Then we have the whiny Prince Yu (Qin Junjie), the youngest son who wants to be a man--and, from the sound of his voice, has a hell of a long ways to go. And everybody is envious of the manly middle son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou), who has just returned from three years in the army and gets to fight dad for fun and further training. Throw in a weasel of a physician (Ni Dahong), his mysterious wife (Chen Jin) and their daughter, Chan (Li Man), who's having an affair with one of the princes, and you start thinking it's a good thing that they didn't have cars back then. Otherwise, one of them would be in a near-fatal accident, develop amnesia, and somebody (maybe everybody would get pregnant but we wouldn't know who the father was until a mysterious twin arrived from . . . . Which is to say, "Curse" is quite the soaper, and it's not just the plotting or stand-and-deliver monologuing that makes it so. It's also that blasted overly emotional background trailer music and Yimou's insistence on long, lingering reaction shots that show those clichéd single tears being squeezed out of the actors' eyes as they try to recall the day their dog got run over by a car. It looks and feels that obviously contrived. Yimou also could have helped this film by cutting some of the scenes, especially the battles near the end when two armies square off.
ut Yun-Fat and Li do a wonderful job of conveying their characters' complexities without betraying every inner thought, and the costumes and set design are absolutely reflective of the film's reputed $45 million budget. "Curse of the Golden Flower" is a feast for the eyes, and the martial arts sequences seem less "wired" this time around. There's a logic for any flying we see, with ropes twirling like tendrils in the sky carrying so many hooded assassins that they appear to be raining down on their targets. And when swords "fly" gracefully here or there, the timing feels such that it can be read as a point-of-view slow-down--you know, the way that time tends to stand still briefly during moments of intense trauma or passion?
Though we can see the film's big twist coming, it's still enough to add interest near the end, when everyone in this royal family turns against another member and all of the Forbidden City seems to hang in the balance. The Golden Flower, by the way, is the chrysanthemum, which is celebrated in a festival that has been targeted by the coup people as the day of action. I can't say how many pots of flowers were used to film the scene, but if they're as expensive for filmmakers as they are for wedding planners, a good chunk of the budget went for Golden Flowers. Sights like those, and moments where the martial arts maneuvers look like aerial ballet, are what make this film fly.
I can't count the times that I've watched a trailer for a film that had all sorts of tension and wished that the entire movie were like that. But you know what? It's like having Christmas every day. No matter how dazzling, it becomes numbingly routine.
That's the reaction I had to the latest martial arts epic from Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which plays like a 114-minute trailer. I'm sure there were moments when there weren't choruses of dramatic chanting in the background while we watched a single tear dramatically streak down a face or some action-packed sequence with people rushing at each other, but I can't remember them. In fact, when there wasn't dramatic chanting and pulsing music creating a "trailer" feeling, there was the constant scream of battles: "Ahhhhhh," "Uhhhhhh," Oyyyy."
And there you have it. Though "Curse of the Golden Flower" has the usual exquisite pageantry and color we've come to expect from recent historical-based Chinese martial arts films, and while the fight sequences are interesting to watch, there are just too many extended moments without enough different camera angles spliced in to give some sense of variety or varied pacing. There are also too many melodramatic moments--so many, in fact, that it feels like a soap opera that just happens to be set in 928 A.D. Instead of "Dynasty," we get the dysfunctional Tang Dynasty, where mom (the Empress Phoenix, played by Gong Li) is having an affair with her son, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye) . . . but wait, he's not her birth son, just the son of Emperor Ping (Yun-Fat). Does the emperor know, or not? If not, then why does he insist that the empress keep taking her daily "medicine," which causes her to double over in pain?
Then we have the whiny Prince Yu (Qin Junjie), the youngest son who wants to be a man--and, from the sound of his voice, has a hell of a long ways to go. And everybody is envious of the manly middle son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou), who has just returned from three years in the army and gets to fight dad for fun and further training. Throw in a weasel of a physician (Ni Dahong), his mysterious wife (Chen Jin) and their daughter, Chan (Li Man), who's having an affair with one of the princes, and you start thinking it's a good thing that they didn't have cars back then. Otherwise, one of them would be in a near-fatal accident, develop amnesia, and somebody (maybe everybody would get pregnant but we wouldn't know who the father was until a mysterious twin arrived from . . . . Which is to say, "Curse" is quite the soaper, and it's not just the plotting or stand-and-deliver monologuing that makes it so. It's also that blasted overly emotional background trailer music and Yimou's insistence on long, lingering reaction shots that show those clichéd single tears being squeezed out of the actors' eyes as they try to recall the day their dog got run over by a car. It looks and feels that obviously contrived. Yimou also could have helped this film by cutting some of the scenes, especially the battles near the end when two armies square off.
ut Yun-Fat and Li do a wonderful job of conveying their characters' complexities without betraying every inner thought, and the costumes and set design are absolutely reflective of the film's reputed $45 million budget. "Curse of the Golden Flower" is a feast for the eyes, and the martial arts sequences seem less "wired" this time around. There's a logic for any flying we see, with ropes twirling like tendrils in the sky carrying so many hooded assassins that they appear to be raining down on their targets. And when swords "fly" gracefully here or there, the timing feels such that it can be read as a point-of-view slow-down--you know, the way that time tends to stand still briefly during moments of intense trauma or passion?
Though we can see the film's big twist coming, it's still enough to add interest near the end, when everyone in this royal family turns against another member and all of the Forbidden City seems to hang in the balance. The Golden Flower, by the way, is the chrysanthemum, which is celebrated in a festival that has been targeted by the coup people as the day of action. I can't say how many pots of flowers were used to film the scene, but if they're as expensive for filmmakers as they are for wedding planners, a good chunk of the budget went for Golden Flowers. Sights like those, and moments where the martial arts maneuvers look like aerial ballet, are what make this film fly.
Be careful what you wish for.
I can't count the times that I've watched a trailer for a film that had all sorts of tension and wished that the entire movie were like that. But you know what? It's like having Christmas every day. No matter how dazzling, it becomes numbingly routine.
That's the reaction I had to the latest martial arts epic from Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which plays like a 114-minute trailer. I'm sure there were moments when there weren't choruses of dramatic chanting in the background while we watched a single tear dramatically streak down a face or some action-packed sequence with people rushing at each other, but I can't remember them. In fact, when there wasn't dramatic chanting and pulsing music creating a "trailer" feeling, there was the constant scream of battles: "Ahhhhhh," "Uhhhhhh," Oyyyy."
And there you have it. Though "Curse of the Golden Flower" has the usual exquisite pageantry and color we've come to expect from recent historical-based Chinese martial arts films, and while the fight sequences are interesting to watch, there are just too many extended moments without enough different camera angles spliced in to give some sense of variety or varied pacing. There are also too many melodramatic moments--so many, in fact, that it feels like a soap opera that just happens to be set in 928 A.D. Instead of "Dynasty," we get the dysfunctional Tang Dynasty, where mom (the Empress Phoenix, played by Gong Li) is having an affair with her son, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye) . . . but wait, he's not her birth son, just the son of Emperor Ping (Yun-Fat). Does the emperor know, or not? If not, then why does he insist that the empress keep taking her daily "medicine," which causes her to double over in pain?
Then we have the whiny Prince Yu (Qin Junjie), the youngest son who wants to be a man--and, from the sound of his voice, has a hell of a long ways to go. And everybody is envious of the manly middle son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou), who has just returned from three years in the army and gets to fight dad for fun and further training. Throw in a weasel of a physician (Ni Dahong), his mysterious wife (Chen Jin) and their daughter, Chan (Li Man), who's having an affair with one of the princes, and you start thinking it's a good thing that they didn't have cars back then. Otherwise, one of them would be in a near-fatal accident, develop amnesia, and somebody (maybe everybody would get pregnant but we wouldn't know who the father was until a mysterious twin arrived from . . . . Which is to say, "Curse" is quite the soaper, and it's not just the plotting or stand-and-deliver monologuing that makes it so. It's also that blasted overly emotional background trailer music and Yimou's insistence on long, lingering reaction shots that show those clichéd single tears being squeezed out of the actors' eyes as they try to recall the day their dog got run over by a car. It looks and feels that obviously contrived. Yimou also could have helped this film by cutting some of the scenes, especially the battles near the end when two armies square off.
ut Yun-Fat and Li do a wonderful job of conveying their characters' complexities without betraying every inner thought, and the costumes and set design are absolutely reflective of the film's reputed $45 million budget. "Curse of the Golden Flower" is a feast for the eyes, and the martial arts sequences seem less "wired" this time around. There's a logic for any flying we see, with ropes twirling like tendrils in the sky carrying so many hooded assassins that they appear to be raining down on their targets. And when swords "fly" gracefully here or there, the timing feels such that it can be read as a point-of-view slow-down--you know, the way that time tends to stand still briefly during moments of intense trauma or passion?
Though we can see the film's big twist coming, it's still enough to add interest near the end, when everyone in this royal family turns against another member and all of the Forbidden City seems to hang in the balance. The Golden Flower, by the way, is the chrysanthemum, which is celebrated in a festival that has been targeted by the coup people as the day of action. I can't say how many pots of flowers were used to film the scene, but if they're as expensive for filmmakers as they are for wedding planners, a good chunk of the budget went for Golden Flowers. Sights like those, and moments where the martial arts maneuvers look like aerial ballet, are what make this film fly.
I can't count the times that I've watched a trailer for a film that had all sorts of tension and wished that the entire movie were like that. But you know what? It's like having Christmas every day. No matter how dazzling, it becomes numbingly routine.
That's the reaction I had to the latest martial arts epic from Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), which plays like a 114-minute trailer. I'm sure there were moments when there weren't choruses of dramatic chanting in the background while we watched a single tear dramatically streak down a face or some action-packed sequence with people rushing at each other, but I can't remember them. In fact, when there wasn't dramatic chanting and pulsing music creating a "trailer" feeling, there was the constant scream of battles: "Ahhhhhh," "Uhhhhhh," Oyyyy."
And there you have it. Though "Curse of the Golden Flower" has the usual exquisite pageantry and color we've come to expect from recent historical-based Chinese martial arts films, and while the fight sequences are interesting to watch, there are just too many extended moments without enough different camera angles spliced in to give some sense of variety or varied pacing. There are also too many melodramatic moments--so many, in fact, that it feels like a soap opera that just happens to be set in 928 A.D. Instead of "Dynasty," we get the dysfunctional Tang Dynasty, where mom (the Empress Phoenix, played by Gong Li) is having an affair with her son, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye) . . . but wait, he's not her birth son, just the son of Emperor Ping (Yun-Fat). Does the emperor know, or not? If not, then why does he insist that the empress keep taking her daily "medicine," which causes her to double over in pain?
Then we have the whiny Prince Yu (Qin Junjie), the youngest son who wants to be a man--and, from the sound of his voice, has a hell of a long ways to go. And everybody is envious of the manly middle son, Prince Jai (Jay Chou), who has just returned from three years in the army and gets to fight dad for fun and further training. Throw in a weasel of a physician (Ni Dahong), his mysterious wife (Chen Jin) and their daughter, Chan (Li Man), who's having an affair with one of the princes, and you start thinking it's a good thing that they didn't have cars back then. Otherwise, one of them would be in a near-fatal accident, develop amnesia, and somebody (maybe everybody would get pregnant but we wouldn't know who the father was until a mysterious twin arrived from . . . . Which is to say, "Curse" is quite the soaper, and it's not just the plotting or stand-and-deliver monologuing that makes it so. It's also that blasted overly emotional background trailer music and Yimou's insistence on long, lingering reaction shots that show those clichéd single tears being squeezed out of the actors' eyes as they try to recall the day their dog got run over by a car. It looks and feels that obviously contrived. Yimou also could have helped this film by cutting some of the scenes, especially the battles near the end when two armies square off.
ut Yun-Fat and Li do a wonderful job of conveying their characters' complexities without betraying every inner thought, and the costumes and set design are absolutely reflective of the film's reputed $45 million budget. "Curse of the Golden Flower" is a feast for the eyes, and the martial arts sequences seem less "wired" this time around. There's a logic for any flying we see, with ropes twirling like tendrils in the sky carrying so many hooded assassins that they appear to be raining down on their targets. And when swords "fly" gracefully here or there, the timing feels such that it can be read as a point-of-view slow-down--you know, the way that time tends to stand still briefly during moments of intense trauma or passion?
Though we can see the film's big twist coming, it's still enough to add interest near the end, when everyone in this royal family turns against another member and all of the Forbidden City seems to hang in the balance. The Golden Flower, by the way, is the chrysanthemum, which is celebrated in a festival that has been targeted by the coup people as the day of action. I can't say how many pots of flowers were used to film the scene, but if they're as expensive for filmmakers as they are for wedding planners, a good chunk of the budget went for Golden Flowers. Sights like those, and moments where the martial arts maneuvers look like aerial ballet, are what make this film fly.
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