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Curse of the Golden Flower
Sony Pictures Classics

Curse of the Golden Flower reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 70 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.2 out of 10
based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 64 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for violence

Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, Liu Ye, Chen Jin, Jay Chou, Ni Dahong, Li Man, and Qin Junjie

Set in 10th century China, the film portrays the imperial Chinese family rapidly losing internal strength due to a power struggle between the emperor (Yun-Fat), the empress (Li), and the couple's three sons.


GENRE(S): Action  |  Adventure  |  Drama  |  Foreign  |  Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Zhang Yimou
Cao Yu (play)
 
DIRECTED BY: Zhang Yimou  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 27, 2007 
Theatrical: December 21, 2006 
RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Hong Kong / China 
LANGUAGE(S): Mandarin (with English subtitles) 

Original title "Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia"

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Time Richard Corliss
This is high, and high-wire, melodrama. It's less soap opera than grand opera, where matters of love and death are played at a perfect fever pitch. And grand this Golden Flower is.
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100
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a work by cinematic geniuses that reveals beauty and terror in a long-ago time with a virtuoso intensity. You won't soon forget its mad, lovely sights and sounds.
Read Full Review
100
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A dazzling costume epic, a spectacle for the eyes and for the soul.
Read Full Review
90
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A period spectacle, steeped in awesome splendor and lethal palace intrigue, it climaxes in a stupendous battle scene and epic tragedy.
Read Full Review
90
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Another remarkable chapter in the career of Asia's most important living filmmaker. After "Pan's Labyrinth," this is the movie to see this season.
Read Full Review
90
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower is a kind of feast, an over-the-top, all-stops-pulled-out lollapalooza that means to play kitschy and grand at once.
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88
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's a lavish entertainment that revels in lurid colors and yet more lurid emotions.
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis
Since his debut in 1987 with "Red Sorghum" Mr. Zhang has made more controlled films but never one that's more fun. With Curse of the Golden Flower he aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too.
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75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Exhaustingly action-packed.
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75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It's more theatrical pageant than action movie, with the showy but rudimentary martial-arts action coming off like just another ritual with the players going through the motions.
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75
USA Today Claudia Puig
The Curse of the Golden Flower is the year's most operatic and visually lavish film.
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75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Chinese director Zhang Yimou has made some of the most beautiful movies of the last 20 years, and with his latest, Curse of the Golden Flower, he has also made one of the most deliciously nutty.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Like a soap opera, but most of what glitters is gold.
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75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Director Zhang Yimou's ambitious attempt to blend martial arts action with Shakespearean melodrama. It's not a perfect marriage but it offers two hours of solidly over-the-top entertainment featuring incredible visuals and powerful performances by international icons Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat.
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75
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The final effect is stunning, but also sadly impersonal.
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75
Premiere Stephen Saito
Action fans might find the film's first half somewhat of a slog to sit through because of its carefully honed exposition, while those used to Zhang's dialogue-heavy dramas are sure to be surprised by the film's brutal second half where blood spurts more than the words.
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75
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
There are fine actors at work here. Chow is quiet and cunning, Gong Li is haughty and cold-eyed, Chen Jin is sturdy as a ghost who appears out of the past, and Gin Junjie is vividly bratty as the youngest, and most underappreciated, prince.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Peter Debruge
But as Western analogies go, Curse achieves an emotional fervor more in keeping with ancient Greek mythology than Elizabethan theater.
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70
Village Voice Rob Nelson
Like his "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," Zhang Yimou's third global-market gigaproduction makes little sense in narrative terms even after two screenings, but the sets, costumes, and cinematography are so intoxicating that it doesn't much matter.
Read Full Review
67
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Curse of the Golden Flower is a watchable soap opera, but its marching-band martial-arts scenes are little more than weakly staged retreads of the ones in Zhang's "Hero."
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67
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Few filmmakers could produce so grand a spectacle, but Zhang used to be good for more than just eye candy.
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63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
This colour-drunk, sumptuous late Tang Dynasty (928 AD) drama is huge on spectacle but as devoid of delight as a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
As easy as this movie is to watch, it's artificially flavored. "Golden Flower" runs on crocodile tears and corn-syrup blood.
Read Full Review
60
Empire Ian Nathan
Imagine "The Lion In Winter" set at a Kylie gig. You can have too much of a good thing, but it is a good thing.
Read Full Review
60
LA Weekly David Chute
In the end, Curse also looks alarmingly like a dry run for the opening and closing ceremonies Zhang has been hired to direct for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
Read Full Review
60
Variety Robert Koehler
Zhang Yimou's strangest and most troubled film, abounds in hysterical, mannered Tang Dynasty-era palace intrigue and dehumanized CGI battle sequences.
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50
New York Post V.A. Musetto
Curse of the Golden Flower could also be called "Curse of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' " In other words, it is yet another attempt to cash in on the success of Ang Lee's 2000 martial-arts epic, which will go down in the history books as one of the most overrated films of the decade.
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50
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The movie has plenty to engage one's interest but little to sustain it.
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50
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
To question that this movie is a visual feast would be an act of real cynicism. But as the old Chinese proverb goes, "Gold and jade on the outside, rot and decay on the inside."
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50
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
In Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou tries to top the breathtaking poetic spectacle of his masterpiece, "House of Flying Daggers," and instead plummets into self-parody.
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50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
I can say only three good things about his latest martial arts picture, the incoherent The Curse of the Golden Flower: 1) Gong Li deserves better roles, 2) The costumes are astonishingly beautiful, and 3) Ummm...wow, how about those costumes!
Read Full Review
30
Film Threat Phil Hall
Zhang Yimou is seriously off his game with the utterly ridiculous Curse of the Golden Flower, a new epic that feels like "Hero" meets "The Lion in Winter" meets "Peyton Place." The film is worthless as a serious work of art, but it may offer the jaded viewer a surplus source of MST3K-inspired wisecracks.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 64 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Armond A. gave it an8:
For the first time in seven years, since I installed a an 8.5 foot projection system in my home, I felt that someone was going say, "Man you're gonna need a bigger...screen!!". This movie cannot be shrunk, or in any way reduced--in size, in sound, in color saturation, in brightness. I was lucky enough to see the blu-ray version of the DVD, and run through a new 3-chip RUNCO projector, the image made jaws drop--though as I've said, even a relatively enormous home screen seemed a bit skimpy. Those who saw it in the "theater" may still not have gotten the full treatment, because the film should be shown on a super- wide that's more than twice as wide as it is high. Zhang Yimou is a truly cinematic storyteller, which means that the entire "scene" is part of the narrative. Most of Mr. Zhang's films are based on rather simple, classic tales, often carrying old truths. This story was an illustration of the Chinese saying "Jade and Gold on the surface, Rot and Decay underneath. " If you see this film presented correctly you SEE and experience the spectacle of overwhelming splendor and disgusting carnage.

Dan gave it a9:
A thoroughly enjoyable movie. The plot is interesting, but the film is really brought to life by the spectacular costumes, stylish Crouching Tiger-like fight scenes, and a brilliant performance by Gong Li as the empress plotting her husband's overthrow while having some on the side fun with her stepson (surprisingly she is not the baddie).

John B. gave it a7:
Curse of the Golden Flower is a solid movie that both captivates and entertains. Like many others have said, the costumes and sets really steal the movie. Overall, it was worth seeing and great all around just nothing outstanding.

HJ gave it a2:
One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Laughable fighting scenes, some famous but inexperienced "actors" like Jay, and large titties, that's what's the movie all about.

PnArdy PnArdy gave it an8:
Great decorations, outstanding visual FX. Boring plot that makes no sense. Dramatic events portraying the struggle for the throne within the emperor's family in 10 century's China.

Omar B.E. gave it an8:
Excellent film, great stages and acting. The end is unexpected (in a good way) and the movie gets better over time. The first hour is a bit monotonous as it tries to tell you the life inside the royal family but after that, the plot becomes quite interesting.

Nang K. gave it a9:
Only one scene was not connected: fighting scene. [***SPOILER***]At first, one commander asked not to kill the second Prince, later, he asked his soldiers to take his life. Apart from that, it was very enjoyable. Family affairs, Pride with Ancient Hirachy Background.

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