Curse of the Golden Flower

We picked up this one at the same time as "Casino Royale", as we've had good results with Asian films working for all three of us. My father-in-law had to travel out of the area before getting to see if, but that's just as well since he probably wouldn't have enjoyed the intricicies of the plot.


This was a historical story, with Chow Yun Fat as the Emporer and Gong Li as the Empress. The plotting of the members of the royal family is the best reason to see this film. There are many lavish visual moments, too. The individual fight scenes are adequate, but don't bother if those are the reason you'd rent a movie like this one. If you like director Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", you'll probably like this one, too. Otherwise, it's worth seeing, if not especially memorable outside of a huge battle sequence, which was done with an enormous number of extras, not with CGI! Call it a 7 out of 10, going up to an 8 if you especially enjoy the director's other work and don't mind the greater focus on intrigue and reduced number of individual fight scenes as compared to other movies of the type.