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Trailer for "Curse of the Golden Flower"

Film distributor Sony Classics did filmgoers a service last fall with a touring retrospective of the films of Pedro Almodvar, timed to precede the release of his new film Volver. They should give serious consideration to doing the same for the Chinese director Zhang Yimou, whose name isn’t quite a household word in the West despite having made some of the biggest arthouse hits of the past two decades. It’s true that Sony doesn’t have the rights to Hero, his worldwide 2003 hit starring Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. But some of Zhang’s most popular movies are inexplicably unavailable in DVD, even in the Asian market, and a series of them would be a welcome opportunity for many viewers to rediscover the work of this most sensualistic of modern filmmakers: House of Flying Daggers, Shanghai Triad, To Live, The Story of Qiu Ju, Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, Red Sorghum—how all of these would brighten up a dreary winter!

In recent years Zhang, the 800-pound bear of Chinese filmmakers, has worked in more intimately conceived and budgeted films as well, like Not One Less and The Road Home. Curse of the Golden Flower is not one of these, as it announces from its opening frame. As far back as the sheets of brightly colored fabric that adorned the dye-makers shop that was the setting for Ju Dou, Zhang has courted sensuality in his films, a trait he gives full rein here.

The story takes place in the Later Tang Dynasty, which lasted from 923-936 AD and which Zhang’s notes refer to as a flamboyant and ostentatious time. It is set primarily in the main palace of the Emperor (an unrecognizable but as always commanding Chow Yun-Fat). To call this place ornate is like calling the ocean damp. From the intricately carved columns and window frames bearing tinted glass to the elaborately patterned rugs, there’s not a visible surface that lacks design or ornamentation.

Nor are the inhabitants any less gaily bedecked. Men and women alike wear robes that consist of as many as six layers of flamboyantly colored fabrics. There’s enough gold jewelry to adorn the next three generations of rappers. And in a choice that has caused some contention among Chinese film buffs (though Zhang claims it is historically accurate), the women all wear push-up corsets that reveal substantial amounts of cleavage.

At the center of this is the Empress, played by Gong Li with an elaborate makeup and décolletage—not to mention a fierce attitude—that at times make her resemble an Asian Tura Satana.

Curse of the Golden Flower offers the eye so much ravishment that I found it difficult to keep my eyes on the subtitles. (I assume this is the same reason that Zhang uses shallow focus in any dialogue scenes involving medium or close-up shots: The actors would otherwise simply disappear into the designs.)

With all this, you want a plot too? You got it. Quoting the Chinese saying “Gold and jade on the outside, rot and decay on the inside,” Zhang has concocted a tale of intrigue and revenge that may lack the Rashomon-like intricacies of Hero but which are nonetheless perfectly satisfying. These include generous dollops of ambition, murder and infidelity, with grace notes of incest reminiscent of James M. Cain (whose melodramatic tales like The Postman Always Rings Twice inspired Zhang’s early films). It all comes from the same well that has fascinated audiences from Shakespeare to The Godfather. And when the time is ripe, Zhang is wholly capable of staging some spectacular battle scenes, with the help of the inimitable action choreographer Ching Siu-Tung (Hero, Shaolin Soccer, Chinese Ghost Story).

Curse of the Golden Flower may not be on a par with Hero, but it’s a step up from House of Flying Daggers. And if you don’t see it in a theater, you’re never going to properly see it.