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Were you knocked out by Hero? Bowled over by House Of Flying Daggers? Then you won’t want to miss Curse Of The Golden Flower, the concluding part of Zhang Yimou’s epic wuxia trilogy. Overflowing with sumptuous visuals, chop-socky mayhem and the finest CG battle since The Return Of The King, it’s a lavish, lurid, eye-saucering spectacular which fully deserves its Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design and the record-breaking success it’s enjoyed in its native China.
If there’s a problem here, it’s in the storytelling – not Yimou’s strongest suit since he embraced action cinema, as anyone who tried to make sense of Hero’s contradictory, Rashômon-style narrative will attest. Set a thousand years ago at the tail end of China’s Tang dynasty, it’s an unnecessarily complex yarn that sees Emperor Chow Yun Fat’s plot to poison unfaithful spouse Gong Li instigate a coup d’etat involving his three sons, one of whom (Liu Ye) is having it away with both stepmom Li and the daughter of the Imperial Doctor (Li Man). Further intrigue is provided by the reappearance of the Emperor’s embittered ex-wife (Chen Jin) before matters resolve themselves in the mother of all scraps, with Chow’s legions of hooded ninjas taking on Gong’s gold-brocaded army in the chrysanthemum-decked courtyard of the Royal Palace.
With every yen it cost up there on the screen, this is a grand, opulent spectacle that leaves the eyes dazzled but the heart unmoved.
