Review of Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) by El B — 08 Feb 2014

Worth watching for it's visual sumptuousness alone, every frame is a beauty. Other than that the Curse disappoints, however. After setting up a tangled intrigue of incest, poison, treason and confounded love that would have been at home in Elsinore, one is set up for an epic drama which never transpires.

Instead the characters fail to develop, mirroring the plot, and the general sense of let down is completed by some hammy acting. There are some good action scenes, but like the movie, their beauty is superficial and over choreographed.

Overall, it reminds one of a grotesque revival of the Soviet era propaganda films- paradoxically aiming to show the corruption of empire while showing off China's wealth in both material and demographic terms.