Curse of the Golden Flower.

"In Curse of the Golden Flower, [Zhang Yimou] achieves a kind of operatic delirium, opening the floodgates of image and melodrama until the line between tragedy and black comedy is all but erased," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "Zhang piles on the intrigue, adding a forbidden love affair, a vengeful first wife and two varieties of incest. His actors respond in kind, straining their facial muscles with silent-movie enthusiasm and doing everything but shooting flames from their eye sockets.... [Zhang] aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too."

Rob Nelson in the Voice: "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."

"[T]his eye-popping spectacle, with its high-flying fight choreography, color-coordinated battle scenes, phantasmagorical interiors and rows upon rows of deliciously costumed extras, is not going to strike anybody as a rip-roaring good time," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "Still and all, good Lord, is this an impressive motion picture."

"All told, Zhang's latest is a lavishly overdecorated period melodrama with a lot of meaningless, bustling energy," writes David Chute in the LA Weekly. "It tries frenetically hard to convince us it's overheated and thunderously emotional, but it has a cold heart."

"Curse pf the Golden Flower may be the worst movie Yimou has ever made," asserts Vadim Rizov at the Reeler. "What's disheartening about Yimou's failure isn't its impersonality as a visual spectacle - Yimou's best work as a character-driven director is far behind him - but that it's such an uninspired one."

"For years, Gong [Li] served not only as Zhang Yimou's favorite actress to film, but also as the central figure of the Fifth Generation filmmakers, working with award-winning directors like Chen Kaige and Wong Jing and establishing herself as the most prolific and best-known Chinese actress in the West, displaying a potent combination of explosive talent and exceptional beauty," writes Christopher Bonet, who offers a guide to some of her best work at IFC News.

Posted by dwhudson at December 21, 2006 11:35 AM