Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)

Directed by Zhang Yimou. Starring Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou, Chen Jin, Qin Junjie, Li Man, Liu Ye, Ni Dahong. [R]

Staggeringly sumptuous wuxia melodrama with visuals as garishly voluptuous as all the corseted cleavage on display, and its soapy histrionics are often just as “tasteful.” Story concerns Chow Yun-fat’s ruthless emperor, an affair between the empress (Li) and her stepson prince (Ye), an even more complicated tapestry of affairs and blood relations, plus assassins and rebellions and a chrysanthemum festival, but it’s hard to pay attention to all those intricacies when everyone is surrounded by such color, such detail, such extravagance, enough to make weaker eyes be struck blind. Less elegant martial arts mayhem than the director’s last two genre efforts (Hero and House of Flying Daggers), but the ornate, gilded sets and costumes ooze like blood, and there’s plenty of compensation in the final act with a massive battle scene at the emperor’s palace. The most expensive Chinese film to date at the time of its release, and no one’s going to argue that the money isn’t up there onscreen. Unlike the “joint” efforts of his previous grandiose wuxia epics, director Zhang Yimou is additionally credited alone as both producer and writer, inspired by the Chinese play, Thunderstorm, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

81/100