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Back in January, esrblog and I went with our friends pmat and shakati to see a movie called "The Curse of the Golden Flower." Actually, I dragged everyone to see it, in the innocent belief that it was a Chinese Martial Arts Movie, and that esrblog would, therefore, love it.

It turns out that I was wrong. Oh, it was definitely Chinese, complete with subtitles. But there wasn't much in the way of martial arts, at least not in the Jet Li movie sense. Instead, it turned out to be a cross between a big-budget historical epic and a Chinese version of "Dynasty." The four of us (including esrblog) rather liked it, but it's not likely to be to everyone's taste. Because it's impossible to say too much more about it that would be meaningful without wandering into Spoilerland, I'll put the rest of this post under a cut.

The story revolves around the Imperial Royal Family during the Tang Dynasty (i.e., sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries C.E.). The filmmakers give us an Imperial Court that, judging from my historical knowledge of the costume and technology of the period, is more or less accurate in historical outline, but is wildly amplified. Colors are louder, buildings and armies are greater in magnitude than is likely to have been historically true. We see hordes of blue clad male servants, hordes of beautiful, blue clad Imperial concubines in tight, low cut bodices, courtyards that could accomodate all the championship games of an NFL season at once. It's the Tang Dynasty on LSD, or perhaps crystal meth, and it's weirdly compelling.

The story, once it begins to unfold, is the stuff of soap opera. The Imperial Family consists of the Emperor, the Empress, and the Emperor's three sons (only one of which is also the Empress's son--a fact that becomes an important plot point.) The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat in so much fake facial and head hair as to be unrecognizable) hates his Empress, who happens to be his second wife. So he plots to poison her until she loses her reason. (The poison is a rare fungus whose natural result is causing madness, not death--an interesting twist.) The Empress, who hates her husband, is plotting with Stepson No. 2 to overthrow him. Stepson No. 1 is sleeping with one of the concubines, who happens to be the Imperial Physician's daughter--and the very person to whom the Imperial Physician has entrusted the task of administering the poison to the Empress.

It continues in this vein, with many changes of costume by the Imperial Couple, and added subtexts of mistaken identity, tragically discovered incest, revenge, and...ninjas! (Yes, ninjas. Hordes of them. I didn't even know Tang Dynasty China had ninjas. But they're in this movie.) The climax of the movie is a Horde-of-Thousands battle scene in which the Empress's side (marked with chrysanthemum scarves) loses and much blood is splashed onto yellow chyrsanthemums. The scenery, costumes, and cinematography are stunning throughout, which makes the over-the-top exaggerations of the plot all the more jarring, to my mind at least.

By the end of the movie, all of the major characters are dead--except for the Emperor. The movie tries to shoehorn in a traditional Chinese moral about the importance of maintaining proper family roles and respect, but the real message felt a lot more like "Don't mess with the Emperor--he's a real bad ass who will crush you mercilessly if you cross him."

If you like costume epics, consider giving it a look-see. If you prefer movies with decent, hardworking, sensible people and happy endings, give it a miss--there's nobody like that living in the Imperial Palace. Except, maybe, for the blue-clad drones who (literally) clean up the mess--and they're not talking.