The curse of the golden flower

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Movie
German title The curse of the golden flower
Original title 满城 尽 带 黄金 甲
Mǎn chéng jìn dài huángjīnjiǎ
Country of production Hong Kong ,
People's Republic of China
original language Mandarin
Publishing year 2006
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Zhang Yimou
script Zhang Yimou,
Yu Cao
production Weiping Zhang
William Kong
Yimou Zhang
music Shigeru Umebayashi
camera Zhao Xiaoding
cut Long Cheng
occupation

Curse of the Golden Flower ( Chinese  滿城盡帶黃金甲  /  满城尽带黄金甲 , Pinyin Mǎn chéng jìn dài huángjīnjiǎ ), even under the English title The Curse Of The Golden Flower known is a dramatic and monumental Wuxia film from 2006 by Chinese director Zhang Yimou .

With a budget of 45 million US dollars, it was the most expensive Chinese film production to date and surpassed Chen Kaige's Wu Ji - The Riders of the Winds .

action

The action takes place at the court of the Chinese emperor in the 10th century, at the time of the Later Tang Dynasty . The Empress has an affair with the son from the Emperor's first marriage, Crown Prince Wan. However, he loves the pharmacist's daughter. The emperor, who discovered the affair, wants to slowly poison his wife by mixing her monkshood root into her medicine, which the pharmacist's daughter gives her several times a day. Although she sees through this, she cannot reject the medicine without arousing suspicion.

A woman in disguise who has invaded the palace confirms to the empress that the medicine contains poison. The woman is discovered on her way back from Wan and taken to the emperor. It is the pharmacist's wife, who used to be the emperor's first wife and is therefore Wan's mother. The emperor recognizes her and promises to make amends for the fact that he rejected her and declared her dead. He appoints her husband, the pharmacist, governor of a province, and the family leaves the capital of the empire with their daughter. On the journey, they are attacked in an inn by the emperor's assassins, only mother and daughter manage to escape. They try to escape back to the palace.

After the empress tells her eldest son, Prince Jai, of his father's plans to murder, he plans a coup on the day of the chrysanthemum festival. The Empress embroidered shawls with golden chrysanthemums for her son's followers so that they can be distinguished from the regular palace guard. Wan, who is also supposed to carry one of these flowers, guesses his mother's plan. After attempting suicide, he reveals the plan to the emperor.

On the day of the festival, the emperor's youngest son, Yu, surprisingly reveals his own plan to take power. He stabs Crown Prince Wan to death, but is then beaten to death by his angry and grieving father. Once at the palace, the pharmacist's daughter learns that her lover Wan was actually her half-brother. Driven by this knowledge, she runs into the hands of the emperor's assassins, who kill her, as well as her mother, who tries to save her. Prince Jai attacks the palace, but his troops are defeated by the warned palace guard, but the Jai themselves are spared. The emperor offers him to become crown prince after all, if he brings his mother her poisoned medicine every day from now on. Jai apologizes to his mother and throws himself on his own sword. In the final scene, the desperate empress throws the cup with the poisoned medicine in front of the emperor's eyes on the table, which is adorned with the emperor's coat of arms. The poison turns the imperial coat of arms black.

Awards (selection)

Oscars :

Nominated

  • Best costume design: Chung Man Yee

Hong Kong Film Awards :

Won

  • Best actress: Gong Li
  • Best film equipment: Tingxiao Huo
  • Best costume & make-up design: Chung Man Yee
  • Best film composer: Jay Chou

Nominated u. a.

  • Best fight choreography: Siu-Tung Ching
  • Best Actor: Chow Yun-Fat
  • Best camera: Xiaoding Zhao
  • Best director: Yimou Zhang
  • Best film: William Kong / Weiping Zhang
  • Best Score: Shigeru Umebayashi

Costume Designers Guild Awards :

Won

  • Best costume design: Chung Man Yee

Reviews

Birgit Glombitza from Spiegel Online considers the film to be an opulent, but soulless spectacle: "The Curse of the Golden Flower" is a spectacle, it's about nothing but opulent images, mass choreographies and complicated costumes. [...] And yet these samurai and swordsman stories remain astonishingly soulless compared to their Hong Kong predecessors from the 1980s and 1990s. As if they themselves no longer believed in a kingdom that was still worth fighting for. Sebastian Handke praises some impressive scenes in the Tagesspiegel , but also criticizes the overloadedness of the film: With all due respect to the great director Zhang Yimou - with his now completed historical trilogy, he has allowed himself more and more to be involved in this soulless cinema. In “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers” Yimou managed to reconcile opulence with asceticism , spectacle and drama. “Curse of the Golden Flower”, on the other hand, is so overloaded that one is concerned that the canvas could loosen from its anchoring under the load and hit the ground with a loud impact.

Historical

  • The plate armor worn by Emperor Ping and Prince Jai were unpopular in Chinese history because of their restricted freedom of movement. For this reason, lamellar armor was rather preferred.
  • The use of nail extensions by the empress was not common during the Tang Dynasty and did not become popular until several centuries later in the Ming Dynasty .
  • The clothes worn by the Empress and her servants are considered unrealistic. In fact, at the time, undershirts were part of the women's wardrobe for the upper class, but they quickly fell out of fashion.
  • The film is set in AD 928 during the Later Tang Dynasty. At that time, Luoyang was the capital. The film always shows - albeit with minor modifications - the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City ) in Beijing . However, this was only built almost 500 years later (1406), and in Beijing, not in Luoyang.

swell

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Curse of the Golden Flower . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2007 (PDF; test number: 109 700 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for The Curse of the Golden Flower . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ^ Criticism at Spiegel Online
  4. ↑ Criticism in the Tagesspiegel

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