Movie Review for Curse of the Golden Flower

Summary: A period high drama that concerns the volatile balance of power between the King and the Queen and his three sons, which entails betrayal, deceit and passion--pitting the King against Queen and father against sons.

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Mike McGranaghan of Aisle Seat (8/0)
            Curse of the Golden Flower is dramatic and exotic, a feast for the eyes with themes that...

By Phil Villarreal of Arizona Daily Star (8/0)
            Some may be turned off by how busy the film is, rushing from one set piece to the next without ca...

By David Germain of Associated Press (8/0)
            The stately Gong looks fantastic, the regal Chow looks cruelly calculating. Yet lacking the inner...

By Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (8/0)
            Some bits are cheesy, but overall, wow!

By Josh Rosenblatt of Austin Chronicle (8/0)
            Just as the emperor’s own misrule is shrouded in ceremony, so too is the rather emotionally insig...

By Jordan Hiller of Bangitout.com (8/0)
            While the film looks beautiful and the cinematography and staging by Xiaoding Zhao is as magnific...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Wesley Morris of Boston Globe (8/0)
            ...looks lovely but plot is overheated.

By Bryant Frazer of Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus (8/0)
            The push-and-pull between the rote royal-family intrigue and the feverish visual design is almost...

By Sean O'Connell of Charlotte Weekly (8/0)
            The eye-catching splendor dresses up a bland soap opera that Shakespeare mastered centuries ago.

By Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune (8/0)
            ...an incredible film...

By Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune (8/0)
            Don't judge the film too quickly, though. It really is like almost nothing you've seen before.

By Peter Rainer of Christian Science Monitor (8/0)
            Zhang Yimou's latest extravaganza is about palace intrigue during the Tan Dynasty, and it's exhau...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Jules Brenner of Cinema Signals (8/0)
            Exposed boobs contribute a titillating ingredient to the venom and the betrayals, but it's no ant...

By Mark Palermo of Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (8/0)
            Theatrical drama becomes largescale cinema. It's a spectacular take on family ties that bind so t...

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (8/0)
            Not even Chow Yun-fat and Gong Li, two of the world's most impressive actors, can inject any dazz...

By Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.net (8/0)
            Another glorious spectacle where Mr. Zhang finds new ways to leave you stunned and amazed with ev...

By Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing (8/0)
            Perhaps Zhang Yimou will one day return to the sort of picture that established his reputation in...

By George Wu of culturevulture.net (8/0)
            Every stone, every piece of fabric, every pushed-up bosom is fetishized to ludicrous extremes. Zh...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By George Wu of culturevulture.net (8/0)
            Every stone, every piece of fabric, every pushed-up bosom is fetishized to ludicrous extremes. Zh...

By Alex Markerson of E! Online (8/0)
            Curse of the Golden Flower is a triumph of set dressing, cinematography and costuming. Now if on...

By Alex Markerson of E! Online (8/0)
            This is a stumble for director Yimou...

By Ethan Alter of Film Journal International (8/0)
            Pardon the momentary lapse into geek-speak, but Zhang Yimou's latest wu xia spectacle Curse of th...

By Phil Hall of Film Threat (8/0)
            Zhang Yimou seems to be confusing the Tang Dynasty with Aaron Spelling's Dynasty.

By Chris Barsanti of filmcritic.com (8/0)
            ...piles spectacle upon spectacle, and tragedy on top of tragedy, until the whole contraption fai...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Chris Barsanti of filmcritic.com (8/0)
            its natural impulse towards regal spectacle overwhelms practically every other element of the sto...

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (8/0)
            [Y]es to opulence, yes to passion, yes to political murder and courtly intrigue and illicit sex a...

By Eric Lurio of Greenwich Village Gazette (8/0)
            If you like action films, this is worth the slog though the chick flick stuff.

By Peter Canavese of Groucho Reviews (8/0)
            Zhang Yimou is back with the latest Chinese competitor in the Opulence Olympics, and not a moment...

By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (8/0)
            A dramatic crisis erupts in bloodbaths that are filled with flash but little meaning. As armies c...

By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (8/0)
            It has sumptuous sets, breathtaking cinematography, gorgeous costumes, heaving bosoms and every c...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Bruce Kirkland of Jam! Movies (8/0)
            All surface beauty, no substance. Zhang Yimou is a master but this film lacks storytelling prowes...

By David Kaplan of Kaplan vs. Kaplan (6/2)
            If you liked Chinese director Zhang Yimou's last film, House of Flying Daggers, chances are you w...

By Jeanne Kaplan of Kaplan vs. Kaplan (8/0)
            Director Zhang Yimou has an incredible eye for color, and this offering does not disappoint when ...

By Nick Schager of Lessons of Darkness (8/0)
            Li...prov[es] so over-the-top imperial that she almost singlehandedly elevates the film's heighte...

By Nick Schager of Lessons of Darkness (8/0)
            Li...prov[es] so over-the-top imperial that she almost singlehandedly elevates the film's heighte...

By Andy Klein of Los Angeles CityBeat (8/0)
            [F]or sheer visual beauty and epic sweep, you can't do better; fans of Zhang's other big producti...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (8/0)
            This is one spectacular historical potboiler, Shakespeare and soap opera in about equal measure.

By Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times (8/0)
            A period spectacle, steeped in awesome splendor and lethal palace intrigue, it climaxes in a stup...

By Pete Hammond of Maxim (8/0)
            Eye-popping. One of the year's most spectacularly visual treats. It has wide-screen images that a...

By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (8/0)
            Yimou's movies always look incredible, but this time around his work seems more like something to...

By Duane Dudek of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (8/0)
            Golden Flower renders words like 'lavish,' 'spectacle,' 'scope,' 'sumptuous,' 'richly detailed' a...

By Ron Wilkinson of Monsters and Critics (8/0)
            Golden mums by the millions spell incest and death as Yimou Zhang tests the American market for s...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) (8/0)
            It's like imitation Shakespeare or a really over-the-top Italian opera -- madness, incest, plots,...

By Ted Murphy of Murphy's Movie Reviews (8/0)
            One might quibble with the CGI battle sequences ..., but that's a small complaint. As long as [th...

By V.A. Musetto of New York Post (8/0)
            Gong and Chou emote, emote, emote.

By Jeannette Catsoulis of New York Times (8/0)
            ...director Zhang Yimou achieves a kind of operatic delirium, opening the floodgates of image and...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (8/0)
            If the overwrought dramatics are like an opera drained of its music, that's a price you may be wi...

By Scott Tobias of Onion AV Club (8/0)
            Few filmmakers could produce so grand a spectacle, but [director] Zhang used to be good for more ...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (8/0)
            It's big, it's beautiful, and you won't leave the theater feeling cheated, no matter how much of ...

By Jason Ferguson of Orlando Weekly (8/0)
            Zhang does a marvelous job at contrasting the tactile sumptuousness of the sets with the venomous...

By Jeremy C. Fox of Pajiba (8/0)
            Everything about it is gorgeously over the top, much like the family melodrama that occasions it.

By Stephen Saito of Premiere Magazine (8/0)
            Curse of the Golden Flower may be one of Zhang's most erratic, even to major fans, but it still m...

By Linda Cook of Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) (8/0)
            A kind of dressed-up soap opera, "The Curse of the Golden Flower" is complicated only in its text...

By Mark R. Leeper of rec.arts.movies.reviews (8/0)
            It is an overwrought melodrama set on a background of impressive beauty.This is a beautiful ...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Jim Hemphill of Reel.com (8/0)
            The sheer technical brilliance of the battle sequences and martial arts showdowns is mind-blowing...

By Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews (8/0)
            ...a fascinating tale of palace intrigue and themachinations of power play.

By Donald J. Levit of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/1)
            The physical battles are stirring here, but the heart really beats in décor and costuming and in ...

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (8/0)
            ...two hours of solidly over-the-top entertainment...

By Jack Garner of Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (8/0)
            Though the film lacks the breathtaking sweep of his magnificent Hero or the lyrical intimacy of H...

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (8/0)
            The final effect is stunning, but also sadly impersonal.

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Jim Lane of Sacramento News & Review (7/1)
            ...a lurid tapestry of conspiracy and bloodshed...

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (8/0)
            Zhang organizes a final battle scene ... that makes the combat in The Lord of the Rings look like...

By Ruthe Stein of San Francisco Chronicle (8/0)
            In Golden Flower, most of what glitters is gold.

By Ruthe Stein of San Francisco Chronicle (8/0)
            Its overabundance is more blessing than curse, however, provided you can suspend disbelief over a...

By Sean Axmaker of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (8/0)
            ... plays like an Asian take on Shakespearean royal tragedy executed with Hong Kong action scenes...

By Moira MacDonald of Seattle Times (8/0)
            Amidst all of this excess, an actor can too easily disappear, or be reduced to a hanger for a cos...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (8/0)
            These characters have enough conflicting relational issues to fill about a year on a daily soap; ...

By Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine (8/0)
            Zhang Yimou moves ever closer to grand opera with Curse of the Golden Flower, though this garish ...

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality and Practice (8/0)
            A visually sumptuous action drama by Zhang Yimou, who proves himself to be the Busby Berkeley of ...

By Brian Tallerico of UnderGround Online (8/0)
            The film may not hold up to Hero or Flying Daggers, but it contains enough of those film's stunni...

By Brian Tallerico of UnderGround Online (8/0)
            The film may not hold up to Hero or Flying Daggers, but it contains enough of those film's stunni...

By Urban Cinefile Critics of Urban Cinefile (8/0)
            Gorgeous to look at and every bit as ornate as The House of the Flying Daggers. However, the dens...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Claudia Puig of USA Today (8/0)
            ...the year's most operatic and visually lavish film.

By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (8/0)
            Beautifully designed, visually stunning epic with impressive battle sequences, although the soap-...

By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (8/0)
            Beautifully designed, visually stunning epic with impressive battle sequences, although the soap-...

By Brian Gibson of Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada) (8/0)
            This is epic, super-duper-sized . . . a hollow but lovely looking spectacle.

By Jeffrey Chen of Window to the Movies (8/0)
            Demonstrates unflinchingly that, when it comes to a proud, powerful government, what's beautiful ...

By Susan Granger of www.susangranger.com (8/0)
            Lurid, lavish eye-candy

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Like its women, the movie from the perspective of the viewer is ravishingly beautiful but frustra...

By Wade Major of Boxoffice Magazine (3/5) No reference
            An opulent spectacle of almost Shakespearean gravitas and eye-popping cinematic virtuosity.

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (7/1) No reference
            Patient filmgoers will be rewarded. The final half-hour of Curse of the Golden Flower is heavy on...

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (7/1) No reference
            Patient filmgoers will be rewarded. The final half-hour of Curse of the Golden Flower is heavy on...

By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (7/1) No reference
            the stupendously lovely backgrounds and costumes manage to make even the most diabolical activiti...

By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/5) No reference
            Curse of the Golden Flower has no emotional center. There’s nobody to root for here (even the wil...

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By David Chute of L.A. Weekly (7/1) No reference
            In the end, Curse also looks alarmingly like a dry run for the opening and closing ceremonies Zha...

By Stephen Whitty of Newark Star-Ledger (3/5) No reference
            There's only a rich family behaving badly, a kind of Dynasty with swords. And as tantalizing as t...

By Shawn Levy of Oregonian (6/2) No reference
            If Golden Flower doesn't soar quite so high as Zhang's previous historical epics, it's neverthele...

By Laura Kelly of South Florida Sun-Sentinel (5/3) No reference
            Curse's gorgeous scenes are draped in silk and brocade, gold and jade -- literally, the walls and...

By Lawrence Toppman of Charlotte Observer (7/1) Not Reachable
            Nuance doesn't matter to [Zhang], and his closeups encourage the nostril-flaring and eye-rolling ...

By Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve (7/1) Not Reachable
            Yet another of Zhang's gorgeous, expensive, costumed periodepics

                         Reviews of Curse of the Golden Flower
By Peter Debruge of Miami Herald (7/1) Not Reachable
            The melodrama here is of a sort seldom taken seriously outside Shakespeare's tragedies, and the f...

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (4/4) Not Reachable
            It's not as good as Zhang's masterpiece, Hero, but it's in that neighborhood.

By Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone of TheMovieChicks.com (7/1) Not Reachable
            I wanted to be swept away, but even with half of China as extras, I was mostly unimpressed.

Movie Distributors
Sony Pictures Classics

Production Companies
Elite Group Enterprises
Edko Films
Film Partner International
Beijing New Picture Film Co

Movie Studios