The Movie: Curse of the Golden Flower, directed by Yimou Zhang
Recommendation: The Oscars. That'll show me...
Reason: Nominated for Best Foreign Film. Why, I'll never know.
Look. Yimou Zhang makes visually gorgeous, color-driven movies, usually starring Chow Yun Fat. I don't know why I keep watching them. Ever since Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon I've been interested in wuxia films, but I know I'm going about it ass backwards. I've seen Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower, etc., basically every overhyped semi-interesting pallet-melodrama that's hit the West. What I haven't seen (and I might enjoy a little more than the just-average offerings I've been watching) are movies like The Bride with White Hair and Chinese Ghost Story. This movie at least had a bit of novelty, what with all the incest. There was a lot of that.
I'm getting pretty bored with Chow Yun Fat, actually, and I thank god that no one thought it was a good idea to cast Zhang Ziyi in this one. Yun Fat is a good actor. I know he is. Gong Li might be, if she could emote past her chest. I guess I just really couldn't get into this movie. Children of Men, another movie whose appeal lay largely in its direction and set design, at least told a story with that lush background. This movie was just very, very pretty.
The metaphor and tales told here have been compared to a Greek tragedy. It's like Hamlet on a huge scale, with swaths of vaguely relevant ninja/soldiers duking it out in line with the battling royals that are above them. But the symbolism and the rotted core that the movie plays with exposing were not enough. Maybe with some good acting and some real reasons behind the silly fight scenes it might have been a more compelling film. Dammit Hollywood, stop nominating wuxia movies for awards just because they're wuxia!
-80/365 down, 285/365 to go
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