Bloodless Coup

Curse of the Golden Flower

So it's a Friday night. Naturally (for me) instead of trying to be sociable and put myself in a position where I'd actually meet new people who might one day become friends and maybe even dateable prospects (I've heard rumors that such humans exist), I chose to sit in a dark room and watch a movie. Now this wasn't simply a case of my INTP tendencies making me uncomfortable with the burden of, you know, having to talk to strangers. There was actually a new movie in town that I'd been looking forward to for months. It promised sumptuous sets, thrilling fight scenes and lots of Gong Li at her most imperious and sexy (or at least cleavage-y). And since I'd been looking forward to it for so long, I'd been thinking for days about seeing it tonight - so I did.

In retrospect perhaps I should have risked talking to strangers - even ones who seemed dim and dull or no better than ordinary aesthetically. They might have provided a better time.

What to say about Curse of the Golden Flower? Well, the colors in the palace are indeed gorgeous. It's a palate I wish I saw every day. It's sumptuous and exuberant and pops. And yeah, there's a lot of Gong Li emoting, and you see her cleavage in something like every fourth frame. But ... well, to start with, there's not much fighting. Now in and of itself that's not the end of the world. I'm totally up for movies about palace intrigues or intrafamilial betrayals from time to time. But see, I'm not often up for bad ones. And this one just isn't interesting on that front. And while the director might be famous for what he can do with fight scenes, he's no better than mediocre at handling drawing room conversations (and that's what most of this movie involves). In fact there was one scene, a scene that I presume is meant to have a lot of emotional heft to it, that had about 75% of the audience I was watching with laughing out loud (yes, including me). Now the film really isn't as bad as these points might suggest. I didn't hate it be any means. But there's just not much special about it beyond the pretty colors. To me it's a C of a movie.