Curse of the Golden Flower

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Curse of the Golden Flower

Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Produced by Bill Gong
Written by Cao Yu
Zhang Yimou
Starring Chow Yun-Fat
Gong Li
Jay Chou
Release date(s) December 14, 2006
Language Mandarin
Budget US$45,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese: 满城尽带黄金甲
Traditional Chinese: 滿城盡帶黃金甲
Pinyin: Mǎnchéng Jìndài Huángjīnjiǎ

Curse of the Golden Flower (Simplified Chinese: 满城尽带黄金甲; Traditional Chinese: 滿城盡帶黃金甲; pinyin: Mǎnchéng Jìndài Huángjīnjiǎ), also known literally as The Entire City Is Wearing Golden Armor, is an Academy Award-nominated 2006 Chinese historical drama film directed by Zhang Yimou.

With a budget of $45 million, it is the most expensive Chinese film to date, surpassing Chen Kaige's The Promise.[1] It was chosen as China's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for the year 2006[2]; it was not nominated in that category though it did receive a Costume Design nomination.

Contents

[edit] DVD Release

It was released on Region 3 DVD on February 13 2007 and Region 1 DVD and Blu-Ray DVD on March 27 2007. An early review on dvdspindoctor.com indicates that the Sony disc is "near-reference quality" -- appropriate since the production was the most expensive in Chinese theatrical history.[3]

[edit] Cast

Hong Kong filmstar Chow Yun-Fat plays Emperor Ping, while mainland Chinese actress Gong Li, who has starred in many of Zhang Yimou's films in the past, plays Empress Phoenix. Liu Ye plays Crown Prince Wan, Taiwanese singer Jay Chou stars as Prince Jai, and Qin Junjie is Prince Yu, the youngest prince. The Imperial Doctor is played by Ni Dahong, his wife by Chen Jin, and their daughter, Jiang Chan, by Li Man.

[edit] Name

The title of the movie is taken from the last line of a Tang dynasty poem attributed to the rebel leader Huang Chao, "On the Chrysanthemum, after failing the Imperial Examination" (不第後賦菊/不第后赋菊) or simply "Chrysanthemum":

“ At the day of the Double Ninth Festival in autumn/ my flower [the chrysanthemum] will bloom and all the others die/ The sky-reaching fragrance [of the chrysanthemum] would fill the Chang'an City/ and the city would be clothed in golden armour ”

Due to the film's high profile while it was still in production, its title, which can be literally translated as "The Whole City Wearing Golden Armor", became a colorful metaphor for the spring 2006 sandstorms in Beijing and the term "golden armor" (黄金甲, huángjīnjiǎ) has since become a metaphor for sandstorms among the locals.[4]

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 drama Thunderstorm (pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the imperial court of the Later Tang Dynasty in the year 628, which was during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. Emperor Ping is a man of humble origins and strong ambition, having risen to the throne from the lowly rank of captain. He abandoned his first wife to marry the Princess of Liang, who is now his Empress Phoenix. The Emperor does not love his second wife, and blames her sour mood on illness and has forced her to take medicine of his own concoction every two hours for the past ten years, but she was unknowingly, yet grew suspicious, of the medication in the past ten days. She and Crown Prince Wan, the Emperor's son from his previous wife, have engaged in an illicit affair for three years. Wan feels guilty about the affair and ends it, against the Empress' wishes. He also has a second secret relationship, with Jiang Chan, the daughter of the Imperial Doctor. He desires to escape the palace, which he has never left, and see the real world with Chan.

Prince Jai, the middle son and eldest son of the Empress, has been leading the Emperor Ping's army at the kingdom's borders for three years. The palace has prepared a massive welcoming ceremony for the returning prince on the eve of the Chrysanthemum Festival, but the Emperor cancels them at the last moment to meet his son at a nearby inn where Jai has been instructed to wait. There, the Emperor duels his son as an act of dominance, after which he warns Jai never to repeat a previous, unspecified mistake, emphasizing that everything Jai receives comes by the will of the Emperor and attempting to take anything from the Emperor by force is doomed to failure. Jai then returns to the palace and visits with his mother, who is feverishly embroidering chrysanthemums for the upcoming festival. While she is embroidering she is struck still for a moment, possibly in pain, and collapses. She recovers quickly but Jai begins to worry about her.

Meanwhile, the Emperor meets with the Imperial Doctor and learns that he has been serving the Empress a special poison along with her medicine for the last ten days, as the Emperor commanded. The poison will cause the Empress to lose her mind and die within a month. The Empress is already suspicious of the poisioning because of the pain and because the taste of the medicine has changed. Because of this, she chooses not finish her next dose until, at a family gathering later that day, the Emperor insists that the Empress finish the medicine that she had left. The Empress refuses until the Emperor forces his sons to beg her to take the medicine. Later on, a woman in ninja costume informs the Empress that the medicine does in fact contain poison, as she had come to suspect. The woman refuses payment, saying she has her own reasons to hate the Emperor. Then she begins to leave, but becomes distracted by Wan, who has her seized and brought to the Emperor. The Emperor recognizes her as his first wife, the mother of Wan, who had escaped imprisonment and execution without his knowledge twenty-five years ago. She is now the wife of the Imperial Doctor and the mother of Chan, who does not know of her mother's past. The Emperor promises to repay her for the wrongs he has done to her and promotes her husband (the Doctor) to governor of another city. After the Doctor leaves with his family the Empress and Jai meet and she tells him she is being poisoned and asks for his help against his father. He first refuses, then submits when he watches his mother willingly drink the poisoned medicine. Later the Empress summons Wan to her chambers and shows him a robe she has made for him to wear at the festival, emphasizing the special crysanthemum she has embroidered on it. Wan becomes suspicious and refuses to wear the robe, they scuffle over it until they end up on the floor together in an almost intimate moment. Seconds later Wan snaps out of it and rushes from the room, riding from the palace to the inn where the Doctor and his family are staying. When he is at the inn with Chan he discovers that the Empress has had her eunuch have embroidered and delivered ten thousand chrysanthemum scarves to General Wu of their own army. Wan immediately gets suspicious and rushes to return to the palace, causing himself to be discovered by Chan's mother, who demands vehemently and without explanation that Wan leave immediately, which he does without a word. The Doctor then sits down for a heart-to-heart talk with his wife and Chan takes the opportunity to pursue Prince Wan, whom she believes is riding into great danger.

Wan returns to the palace and confront the Empress. She is hurt and jealous of his relationship with Chan and his refusal to wear the robe she made for him, so when he becomes angry and says that her plot would cause him to be killed she agrees, telling him she wants him to die. At that he grabs a knife and stabs himself, but not fatally. Later, when he is recovering, the Emperor visits him and tells him he has known for years about the relationship between Wan and the Empress. The Emperor then tells Wan he does not blame him for the betrayl, and Wan divulges the Empress' plot.

Meanwhile, before the heart-to-heart talk can begin between the Doctor and his wife, the Emperor's black-clad assassins descend on the inn, armed with sickle-like swords and long ropes attached to grapples to slaughter all the occupants. They kill the Doctor, but red-clad soldiers loyal to the Empress hold them off and allow his wife to escape. She flees to the palace, where the Chrysanthemum Festival is about to begin. She is revealed to the royal family and Chan by the Empress as the Emperor's first wife and Wan's mother. Driven mad by her incestuous love for Wan, Chan flees screaming into the courtyard with her mother in pursuit. The Emperor's assassins kill both women and are killed in turn by the Empress' red-clad guard. Then a large army of gold-armored soldiers swarms into the palace, killing imperial bodyguards and courtiers as they approach. With Jai taking point, they descend on the palace with Chrysanthemums on their scarves.

In the palace, Yu, the youngest prince, stabs Wan in the back to the surprise of all. He screams that he has witnessed the plotting of his family and concluded that he must take the throne. Backed by several soldiers, he orders his father to abdicate. The Emperor's assassins descend from the rafters and kill the soldiers, and the Emperor pulverizes Yu with his heavy golden belt. Outside, Jai leads the golden soldiers into the courtyard, cutting down the impreial flag as a symbol to go forward. As the golden soldiers trample the chrysanthemum pots in the courtyard, an even larger army clad in silver shows up and fortifies the palace with spears, bows, and a massive mobile wall. They slaughter all 10,000 golden soldiers, but spare Jai. He fights a determined, solitary battle against the entire army for some time, killing more than 50, before the teary-eyed Empress nods to him and he submits. Servants clear away the bodies and restore the decorations, including the thousands of pots of chrysanthemums, with mechanical precision. The festival begins as if nothing had happened.

The Empress and a blood-soaked Jai are brought to the festival table where the Emperor sits. The Emperor reveals that he knew of the plot against him since Wan had informed him of it, and reminds Jai of his previous warning not to take what has not been given to him, thinking that Jai was making a bid for the throne. With that in mind, he also tells them that he had already decided to replace Wan with Jai as Crown Prince to emphasize the superfluous nature of Jai's act. Jai admits that he knew that his fight was futile, but he did it for his mother, not the throne. In response, the Emperor says that he will spare Jai the penalty for princely rebellion of being ripped apart by five horses if he will personally serve his mother her poisoned medicine from now on. Jai kneels before his mother and apologizes, then kills himself with a sword. Blood splatters the contents of the table as the Emperor bends to take a morsel of food. He pauses without expression. The Empress, truly driven mad now, flings the medicine into the center of the table. The poisonous contents of the cup turns the giant golden chrysanthemum on the table black as the movie ends.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Soundtrack

Besides starring in the film, Jay Chou has also recorded a song to accompany the film, titled "Chrysanthemum Terrace" (Chinese: 菊花台; pinyin: Júhuā tái), released on his 2006 album Still Fantasy.

[edit] Historical inaccuracies

Despite the historical setting, the movie is not factual on any level, nor does it pretend to be. The primary source material for Curse of the Golden Flower's screenplay, co-written by Director Zhang, Wu Nan, and Bian Zhihong, is a Chinese play set in the 1930s. Zhang has re-worked the story to transport it more than a millennium back in time.[5] Inaccuracies include:

  • The use of nail extensions by Gong Li's character was not popular during the Tang Dynasty, but only after the Ming Dynasty several centuries later.[1]
  • Gold was one of the central themes of the film, but the color was reserved only for use by the emperor. Not even close members of the royal family were allowed to have gold clothing, or items of gold. Violators could face the penalty of death.[1]
  • Plate armor, worn by Prince Jai and the Emperor in the movie, was unpopular throughout Chinese history, as it restricted movement, and was thus unlikely to have been used. Scale and lamellar were preferred over plate for this reason. [6]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b "Down mammary lane", The Straits Times, 17 December 2006.
  1. ^ Zhang Yimou raises "Armor" at CCTV
  2. ^ "'Curse,' 'The Banquet' picked as Oscar entries", Associated Press via Chinadotcom, October 3, 2006.
  3. ^  Chrysanthemum - flower of honour People Daily, China, November 16, 2003
  4. ^ The Word on the Street is 黄金甲 (huáng jīn jiǎ) webcast at Chinese Pod.

[edit] External links

Films directed by Zhang Yimou
Red Sorghum (1987) • Codename Cougar (1989) • Ju Dou (1990) • Raise the Red Lantern (1991) • The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) • To Live (1994) • Shanghai Triad (1995) • Keep Cool (1997) • The Road Home (1999) • Not One Less (1999) • Happy Times (2000) • Hero (2002) • House of Flying Daggers (2004) • Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005) • Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
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