A kind of dressed-up soap opera, "The Curse of the Golden Flower" is complicated only in its texture and colors - not in its characters
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01/14/07
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Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
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Reviews Counted:117
Fresh:76
Rotten:41
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: Melodrama, swordplay, and CG armies -- fans of martial arts epic will get what they bargain for, though the baroque art direction can be both mesmerizing and exhaustively excessive.
Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Dec 21, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $6,466,942
Synopsis: In 2004, Zhang Yimou caused a sensation with his astonishing HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, and his CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER is yet another dazzling, visually stunning film. Calling again upon the... [More]
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Reviews for Curse of the Golden Flower
I wanted to be swept away, but even with half of China as extras, I was mostly unimpressed.
01/12/07
Nuance doesn't matter to [Zhang], and his closeups encourage the nostril-flaring and eye-rolling of a silly soap opera.
01/12/07
For all the swordplay and martial-arts fisticuffs, Curse is its most delirious as a lavish argument for the soap opera's roots in Greek tragedy.
01/12/07
This spectacularly decorated movie offers the enjoyment of watching Zhang chronicle the lives of one very nutty family. It also allows Zhang to load every inch of the screen with images so full that you half expect them to collapse under their own weight.
01/12/07
Top CriticPatient filmgoers will be rewarded. The final half-hour of Curse of the Golden Flower is heavy on action. A large-scale war sequence is visually stunning, perhaps even rivaling Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy for its epic scale.
01/12/07
Curse is straightforward and solemn, lacking not for spectacle but for humor and a humanizing touch.
01/12/07
Top CriticMake no mistake, all is epic, violent, bloody madness once the director hits his stride, and fans of Zhang's work will not want to miss Curse of the Golden Flower. But brush strokes are amiss here.
01/12/07
Curse of the Golden Flower has no emotional center. There’s nobody to root for here (even the wildly charismatic Chow Yun-Fat seems remote and surly), and the characters' scheming seems more like an elaborate pageant than a viable drama.
01/12/07
The melodrama here is of a sort seldom taken seriously outside Shakespeare's tragedies, and the final body count rivals Hamlet in its royal bloodletting.
01/12/07
Golden Flower renders words like 'lavish,' 'spectacle,' 'scope,' 'sumptuous,' 'richly detailed' and 'dysfunctional family' inadequate.
01/12/07
If Golden Flower doesn't soar quite so high as Zhang's previous historical epics, it's nevertheless a truly beautiful film.
01/12/07
It's big, it's beautiful, and you won't leave the theater feeling cheated, no matter how much of a letdown the finale might be.
01/12/07
Though the film lacks the breathtaking sweep of his magnificent Hero or the lyrical intimacy of House of Flying Daggers, Curse remains worth seeing. (A lesser Zhang film is still superior to the best of other directors.)
01/12/07
If looks were all it took to thrill, this opulent, near-operatic historical pageant would rank with Zhang Yimou's last two epics.
01/12/07
Top CriticThis is epic, super-duper-sized . . . a hollow but lovely looking spectacle.
01/12/07
Zhang organizes a final battle scene ... that makes the combat in The Lord of the Rings look like a flea circus.
01/12/07
the stupendously lovely backgrounds and costumes manage to make even the most diabolical activities look extremely attractive. ...The Shakespearean scheming is titillating at first, but... becomes slightly stagnant...
01/12/07
...it is unlike anything that came out from Hollywood last year... or is likely to be released this year.
01/12/07
...a lurid tapestry of conspiracy and bloodshed...
01/11/07
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