Curse of the Golden Flower

[adam]

I really enjoyed this one. I wasn't such a fan of House of Flying Daggers, but this was quite a bit different, and much better, in my opinion. I like Chow Yun-Fat, though. The sets and costumes are amazing.

[Aaron Contreras]

Yeah, way better story than House of Flying Daggers or Hero. On the other hand...there wasn't much of a feeling of completion at the end. It wasn't exactly tragic and certainly not heroic, with the exception of the Dynasty Warrior son.

[kid cue]

refuse to see it

it will presumably be sampled by a dubstep producer anyway, which is enough for me

[adam]

I'm not sure where you've gotten your impression of the director, kid cue, but in the featurette thing in the bonus features, he comes accross as quite socially conscious. He talks about the repression of humanity that was taking place at the time, the extreme subjugation of women, etc.

[kid cue]

i haven't given it that much thought. but Hero offended me with all the threatening nationalistic overtones. maybe this is a Taiwan vs. China thing. it also struck me as being overtly manipulative and kitsch in the purest (i.e. very worst) way, not to mention boring and dumb.

i used to LOVE Zhang Yimou films like Raise The Red Lantern, Not One Less, Red Sorghum. those nationalistic strains are all over his films; there's no reason they shouldn't be, but with all this pandering wuxia car commercial shit he's crossed some kind of line i never thought he'd cross. he's China's most famous director, everybody there knows him, and i can't help but feel that most Western fans of his latest work would change their minds after reviewing more of his back catalogue, or perhaps some earlier examples of the wuxia tradition that he is mining for nostalgia (in China) and attention (everywhere else).

everyone i've heard talking about / talked to about this movie agrees that it's weirdly fascist and that he is either becoming a government/populist puppet or turning senile, and i'm more than willing to take their word for it.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by kid cue

everyone i've heard talking about / talked to about this movie agrees that it's weirdly fascist and that he is either becoming a government/populist puppet or turning senile, and i'm more than willing to take their word for it.

possible spiolers on hero...


really? i'm with you on the movie being kitschy and pretentious. At times I thought the "poetry" of the imagery was gaggingly sweet. But the way hero worked for me is that I got out if it a more conflicted attitude towards power and hegemony. The hero is justified in his cause, as he is justified in the final decision he makes. The whole "our land" was a bit much, I agree, but then the director martyred the resistance very sympathetically, wouldn't you say?

Either way I thought house of flying daggers was a better movie. I don't know what you guys were talking about, but if you're going to go tits out on the arty kung fu thing, you might as well make it a love story. it seems a more effective plot for this kind of thing (this movie also, by the way, explored the corruption of a strong central chinese government that has rotted from the inside out which I thought well balanced any pro fascist crap in hero)

[Aaron Contreras]

Yeah, Hero is incredibly anti-Heroic and has plain freaky politics.

How is Curse of the Golden Flower fascist?

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

really? i'm with you on the movie being kitschy and pretentious. At times I thought the "poetry" of the imagery was gaggingly sweet. But the way hero worked for me is that I got out if it a more conflicted attitude towards power and hegemony. The hero is justified in his cause, as he is justified in the final decision he makes. The whole "our land" was a bit much, I agree, but then the director martyred the resistance very sympathetically, wouldn't you say?

i don't remember the film too well. i don't recall there being any hint that the hero made the right choice. it might seem obvious to the (Western?) viewer, but the clearest message Hero seemed to communicate was that dissenters from the mother country would be crushed no matter what. if Zhang was trying to be subversive, it sure didn't come across. maybe it was a bad edit of his original film--i can't imagine the Chinese govt allowing such a blockbuster to convey anything like a "conflicted attitude towards power and hegemony".

let me reiterate that i haven't seen COTGF, so i can't really discuss why it's fascist or not fascist.

[kid cue]

maybe i shouldn't be going on about Hero in a thread about Curse of the Golden Flower, but i thought the action sucked too. so much digital filigree and related BS. 30 seconds of any wuxia soap on Asian tv 10 years ago were more entertaining than that whole film, no exaggeration!

it's like comparing Keanu Reeves kung fu to Jet Li kung fu.

[Strangelet]

i'm just playing devil's advocate here but the hero politics kind of reminded me of lincolnian politics, strong central government, as opposed to rebellious and contentoius states. Not saying I agree with this kind of politics, but it is pretty main stream for a lot of western viewers