[Movies] Curse of the Golden Flower

Where Hero succeeded in showing the world the kind of creative genius that can be imbued into a film, Curse of the Golden Flower failed miserably despite having pretty much the same creative minds behind it.

The movie felt like one bit advertisement for their costume designers (and they did merit at least an Oscar nomination) and nothing else. You can feel this in about 40% of the movie where the characters are either walking down a long, narrow corridor which is shown over and over from different angles or in the big sequences where the dozens of costumed extras try to do their impression of a swarm of ants.

The movie gets terribly dull at many points and I nearly fell asleep in several parts. The plot had the potential to be interesting but the development was not at all handled well and the movie came out very sloppy indeed. Once you get to the end, things become just a bit more interesting since this is where most of the fighting in the movie takes place. The rest of it is just about the characters sitting around posing in their costumes. You end up with a bloodbath that puts even Hamlet to shame, but with a lot less value and meaning. If you manage to survive until the end, you'll want to stab yourself with a knife to put yourself out of your misery for even having endured the film.

You do not need to see this film, unless you have a fetish for gold, I guess.