Curse of the Golden Flower

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Curse of the Golden Flower
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Produced by William Gong
Zhang Weiping
Zhang Yimou
Written by Cao Yu
Zhang Yimou
Starring Chow Yun-Fat
Gong Li
Jay Chou
Music by Shigeru Umebayashi
Cinematography Zhao Xiaoding
Release date(s) Flag of Hong Kong Flag of the People's Republic of China Hong Kong, China, December 21, 2006
USA December 21, 2006
UK 13 April 2007
Running time 114 min.
Language Mandarin
Budget $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 When Golden Armour Covers the Entire City, is a 2006 Chinese historical epic 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] Cast

  • Jay Chou - Prince Jai
  • Chow Yun-Fat - Emperor Ping
  • Gong Li - Empress Liang
  • Liu Ye - Crown Prince Wan
  • Qin Junjie - Prince Yu
  • Ni Dahong - The Imperial Doctor
  • Chen Jin - Wife of the doctor
  • Li Man - Jiang Chan (daughter of the doctor)

[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":

“ When autumn comes on Double Ninth Festival, / my flower [the chrysanthemum] will bloom and all others perish. / When the sky-reaching fragrance [of the chrysanthemum] permeates Chang'an, / the whole city will 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 is Clothed in 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.[3]

[edit] Plot

 The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article.
Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot.

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play Thunderstorm (雷雨pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the imperial court of the Later Shu, 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 or her often sour mood; he blames the latter on an illness, for which he has forced her to take medicine of his own concoction every two hours for the past ten years. Empress Phoenix has been outwardly obedient throughout the marriage and her husband's treatment, but has grown suspicious of the medicine in the recent span of ten days. Her submissiveness also conceals the fact that she and Crown Prince Wan, the Emperor's son from his previous wife, have engaged in an illicit affair for three years. The status quo is broken, however, when Wan reveals to the Empress his guilt about the affair and then ends it against her wishes. Part of his motivation is a second secret relationship, held with Jiang Chan the daughter of the Imperial Doctor. Wan's overriding desire is to escape the palace, which he has never left, and thereby see the outside world with Chan.

Prince Jai, the middle son and current Empress's eldest, 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 before daybreak, 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. There His father gives him command of the Palace Royal Guards for the Duration of the Festival. 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, who confirms that a special poisonous fungus had been added to her medicien for the last ten days, as per the Emperor's instruction. For unspecified reasons the poison is used to cause the Empress to lose her mind within two months. Not coincidentally, the Empress became increasingly more suspicious of the medicine due to the change in its taste and the recent onset of pain. Because of this, along with ten years of little effect, she chooses to leave the last swallow of her next dose. At a family gathering later that day, the Emperor indicates that he knows of her disobedience, and then insists that she finish the remaining medicine. The Empress refuses until the Emperor coerces his sons into begging her to comply.

Later on, a woman in assassin's garb 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 without his knowledge had escaped imprisonment and execution twenty-five years earlier and was saved by the doctor whom she eventually married, and gave birth to 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.

The Doctor leaves with his family, but only after telling the Emperor that he has prepared 2 months' worth of the poison for his wife. 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 chrysanthemum 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. While he is at the inn with Chan, Wan discovers that the Empress has had her eunuch embroider and deliver 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, who she believes is riding into great danger.

Wan returns to the palace and confronts the Empress. She is hurt and jealous of his relationship with Chan, plus 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. Stunned by such a remark, Wan grabs a nearby knife and stabs himself. He is rushed to treatment, and the wound was not fatal. A wounded Wan begs the Empress to abandon her plan for her own good, but the Empress tells him that she cannot. Later, the Emperor visits him and tells him he has known for quite some time about the relationship between Wan and the Empress. The Emperor then tells Wan he does not blame him for the betrayal, whereupon Wan divulges the Empress' plot. There the scene switches to the Emperor, who sits in meditation examining a large Dragon Coin before throwing it behind him. There a black-clad assassin jumps down from the ceiling, retrieves the coin and walks backwards out of the room.

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 kusarigamas, to slaughter all of the occupants. The people inside attempt to escape, with the guards fighting to the last man. The doctor is wounded in the escape and, realizing that they can't outrun them, jumps off their mount and delays the attackers for his wife to escape, but is easily overwhelmed. The Assassins nearly catch up, but red-uniformed soldiers shoot down the assassins swinging from the cliffs and engage those on foot, allowing the doctor's wife to ride on back to the palace, where the Chrysanthemum Festival is about to begin. It is revealed that Prince Jai, in command of the palace guards, orders them to enjoy a banquet for the evening. When the doctor's wife arrives to the palace and rejoins her daughter, the Emperor's assassins are again intercepted by red-clad soldiers. A eunuch arrives and informs them that the Empress had sent her own forces to interdict the murder attempt on their family. Chan and her mother confront the royal family and angrily demands why her family is to be killed. Wan asks his father who she is; Empress reveals to the royal family that the woman is in fact the Emperor's first wife, and Wan's birth mother. Driven mad by the realization that her lover is in fact her half-brother, Chan flees screaming into the courtyard with her mother in pursuit. The Emperor's assassins reappear and kill Chan, who in turn fatally wound the doctor's wife as she kills them in grief. A volley of golden spears fly in to kill the Wife and various servants of the Palace fleeing from the palace entrance. A large army of gold-armored soldiers from the state army swarms through the front gates, bearing chrysanthemum scarves, killing black-clad assassins as they approach. With Jai emerging in his own golden armor, the army advances toward the courtyard.

In the palace, all are surprised when Yu, the youngest prince, stabs Wan in the back. Yu screams that he has witnessed and is disgusted by the plottings of his family, and has concluded that he must take the throne. Backed by several soldiers dressed as Royal Guards, he orders his father to abdicate. When he refuses, the Emperor's assassins descend from the rafters and ambush the soldiers, after which the Emperor uses his heavy golden belt to beat Yu to death in a rage that he has killed his favorite son.

Outside, Jai leads the golden soldiers into the courtyard, cutting down a imperial banner that stood as a warning. As the golden soldiers trample the chrysanthemum pots in the courtyard, the Palace Guards in silver armor reappear, barricading the gate, and fortify the palace with spears, bows, and a massive mobile wall which cuts across the courtyard. Jai's followers' first attempt was to throw volleys of spears above the wall, but are easily deflected by large shields that protected the troops. Jai's soldiers then attempt to scale the wall using their spears as ladders, but are repulsed. Trap doors on the wall skewer a majority of the men and the men on top of the wall loosed volleys of arrows. The wall starts to move forward, squeezing the army into a deathtrap as the courtyard doors are blocked by more Palace Guards. In the aftermath the Palace Guards attempt to locate Prince Jai among the dead, he suddenly emerges from a mound of his dead soldiers. He fights a determined, solitary battle against the entire army for some time, killing many before being surrounded and boxed in with spears. As he continues to fight, the teary-eyed Empress nods to him to surrender, and he submits. Afterwards,the guards bring in other survivors and various ministers wearing the chrysanthemum scarfs and they are executed. A horde of 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; assuming that the coup was a bid for the throne, the Emperor reminds Jai of his previous warning to not take what has not been given to him. With that in mind, he also reveals an earlier decision to replace Wan with Jai as Crown Prince, thereby emphasizing the superfluous nature of Jai's act. Jai admits that he knew that his fight was futile, but corrects the Emperor's assumption by stating that he did it all 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 including the empress's medicine as the Emperor bends to take a morsel of food. He pauses without expression. The Empress, truly driven mad now, screams as she 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.

This last image is a symbol for the main metaphor of the film: Golden and beautiful on the outside, rot and decay on the inside.

[edit] Historical perspective

The primary source for the screenplay (co-written by Director Zhang, Wu Nan and Bian Zhihong) is a renowned Chinese play written by Cao Yu in the 1930s with its story re-worked (by Zhang) to transport it more than a millennium back in time.[4]

At the start of the film, text from the English-language version of the film states that this movie is set in the time of the Tang, in the year 928. However, the Chinese version of the film did not specify a time period and the film's published screenplay indictates it is set during Later Shu of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.[1] However, the story in the film is entirely fictional and has essentially no relation to real history. There are also a number of other inconsistencies with established Chinese history. These include:

  • The use of nail extensions by the Empress was not popular during the Tang Dynasty. Nail extensions did become popular during the Ming Dynasty some six hundred years later.[2]
  • Plate armor, worn by Prince Jai and Emperor Ping in the movie, was unpopular throughout Chinese history, as the Chinese army preferred the light weight and flexibility of Scale and lamellar armors.
  • The dresses the Empress and her servants wore were given an unrealistic cleavage. In fact, camisoles were part of the wardrobe of upper class women in China at that time.
  • Although the movie is supposedly set in the Five Dyansties period of the Later Shu, the architecture of the palace in which the movie takes place is reminiscent of the Ming Dynasty, in particular, the Forbidden City.

[edit] Reception

The US release garnered a generally positive, but tepid reception: it holds an average rating of 64/100 by film critics on the ranking site Rotten Tomatoes[5] and a rating of 70/100 by film critics on Metacritic.[6] Of the positive reviews, most critics praised the "spectacularly decorated" dramatic aspects of the film, while others suggest that Curse of the Golden Flower was a poor reflection of director Zhang Yimou's acclaimed works in the past.[7] It has grossed $77 million worldwide.

[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 and included in his Curse of the Golden Flower EP. The EP includes Jay Chou's song "Golden Armor" (Chinese: 黄金甲; pinyin: Huang2jin1 jia3) as well.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The novel Curse of the the Golden Flower
  2. ^ "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] see also

[edit] External links

v • d • e
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)
v • d • e
Cinema of China