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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
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43
Anamorph
35
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32
Backseat
80
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65
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47
Bella
63
Blind Mountain
71
Blindsight
47
Boarding Gate
60
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
Chapter 27
69
Chicago 10
xx
Children of Huang Shi, The
83
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
Counterfeiters, The
30
Cover
49
Dark Matter
35
Deal
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
83
Edge of Heaven, The
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
Fall, The
43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
From Within
44
Frontier(s)
57
Fugitive Pieces
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61
Girls Rock!
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57
Grand, The
58
Hats Off
68
Honeydripper
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
67
Jellyfish
51
Jihad for Love, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
72
Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
65
Married Life
35
Meet Bill
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
55
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
55
Noise
63
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
55
Pathology
48
Penelope
90
Persepolis
62
Planet B-Boy
xx
Plumm Summer, A
67
Praying with Lior
46
Previous Engagement, A
72
Priceless
80
Reprise
71
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
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85
Savages, The
24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
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40
Sleepwalking
67
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67
Son of Rambow
71
Standard Operating Procedure
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68
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
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Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
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Unforeseen, The
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Visitor, The
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War, Inc.
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Water Lilies
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Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
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Without the King
75
Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
90
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Chop Shop
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
83
Edge of Heaven, The
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Reprise
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Witnesses, The
75
Shotgun Stories
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
Standard Operating Procedure
71
Roman de gare
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
70
Caramel
69
Chicago 10
68
Surfwise
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Jellyfish
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Son of Rambow
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Unsettled
66
Shelter
65
Battle for Haditha
65
Married Life
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
Girls Rock!
60
Body of War
59
Under the Same Moon
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Fugitive Pieces
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Turn the River
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Mister Lonely
55
Noise
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Jihad for Love, A
50
Sangre de mi sangre
50
Look
49
Dark Matter
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Zombie Strippers
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
xx
Tashan
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Children of Huang Shi, The
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
War, Inc.
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Curse of the Golden Flower
Sony Pictures Classics
FILM:
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"

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.

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.

100
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
A dazzling costume epic, a spectacle for the eyes and for the soul.

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.

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.

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.

88
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It's a lavish entertainment that revels in lurid colors and yet more lurid emotions.

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.

75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Exhaustingly action-packed.

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.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The Curse of the Golden Flower is the year's most operatic and visually lavish film.

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.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Like a soap opera, but most of what glitters is gold.

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.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The final effect is stunning, but also sadly impersonal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The movie has plenty to engage one's interest but little to sustain it.

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."

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.

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!

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.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 64 User Votes
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