Over the years, we all have read and seen hundreds of different stories about "Evil Emperors", and in most cases these Evil Emperors are focused either in conquering more territories (with an excessive use of power and aggression) or in making the poorest people within their lands suffer. In this case, nevertheless, we find ourselves with an emperor whose evil, or at least his flaws of character, are suffered mainly by his close family, more precise by his own wife and sons, Of course, consequently sometimes ending up creating suffering for pretty much everyone in the Royal Palace.As in many great plays, the story is preceded by a number of "tragical mistakes", that lead us to the present moment and circumstances, that are very unfortunate and sad.Talking about the constitutive elements of the production, we can appreciate a lot of outstanding characteristics: great and amazing colors throughout the film, great martial arts fights; both one-one-one and massive, nice wardrobes, great scenography, etc...Another point that we could remark about the movie, is the detail that the emperor seems to be instructed (as the old emperors of China were actually supposed to) in a number of disciplines, including medicine, which the emperor in our story sadly uses for malign reasons.Finally, we can say that the performances of Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat both achieved what they were meant to; they gave us a great emperor we could hate and an empress we could both love and commiserate.Thanks for reading. IMDb by David del Real. Ciudad de México. México. October 11th, 2017.

I must admit that this movie is one of the worst disappointments in my life. I saw it by recommendation, and from the comments they made me, I thought it would be a masterpiece: A visually perfect film with a great plot focused on family drama and mistrust. What was my opinion when I finished seeing it ?: Yes, it has family drama, but the softer one. A plot that we have seen over and over again in best- sellers or epic films and while good visually, is not a masterpiece in this regard. Everything is overloaded: the colors, the elements of the changing rooms, the decorations. Everything is arranged so that you do not get to appreciate everything and feel overwhelmed with it. The movie is not meant for you to enjoy a good story, it's made for you to say "oh, look at those great scenarios, how awesome" and nothing more. It is not a deep movie and it lacks everything to be considered a "masterpiece". The plot and its coherence and any interest we might have in it were sacrificed for what could be considered a "greater good" but ended up being a "major evil." This leads to the fact that even the characters are not interesting, they are flat and boring and the actors hardly make an effort to interpret them and that, at the end of instances, it seems that they realized that they made a mistake with the plot and tried to remedy it. The resulting was a whole sequence of meaningless dialogues and cringe situations that give way to an equally disappointing and insipid end. Summary of everything said: They wanted to make a film visually perfect and failed. There was no effort in dealing with the plot or the characters and the director seemed more willing to teach scenarios and costumes than a good movie with all that it entails.

All the other comments point out the visual exuberance of this. Indeed the Tang palace shown here would make the Versailles look boorish. The film is a feast, a hot shower of melted color and gold. Walls are gilded, pillars are fire colored, ceilings are purple. Every frame an ornate sculpture. You can see why Zhang would be picked for the Olympic ceremony two years later - the festival at the end is like a trial run.But now to see the makings of things clearly instead of being dazzled. It's precisely a dynastic beauty that overpowers the eye, clouds the mind with visual smoke. Gold here is both opulence and delusion, beauty and ignorance, not unconnected these two. Within this gilded cage unfolds Shakespearean drama with tragic irony in abundance between emperor, wife and three sons.The idea, deeply Chinese, is that there's heavenly order in the world and man must take his place in it and devise his own order to mirror the higher one. The Chinese had indeed mulled over this long and hard to devise their own order that would support an empire. We see everything ordered here and the small rituals involved. Elaborate preparations are underway for a festival that celebrates the unity of heaven and man. But the medicine she's ritually made to take every day (to "balance her energies") is poisoned; an indictment of the artificial harmony favored so much by the Chinese.It is a household that we enter essentially. Scaled down from imperial machinations that involve poison and succession to the throne, we see an unhappy family. When the imperial doctor who has been administering the poison with his daughter is felled upon by mysterious figures in black in a most marvelous scene outdoors, these are apparitions of guilt that have come to haunt, puppets on strings descending from the sky. It's karma, another kind of heavenly order. Something went wrong once in this family and the world makes it wash up in front of them.I like that it's all abstracted within walls here, that we don't venture outside for sweeping history. It has elaborate action only near the end and using the same gilded abstraction. And that it builds the same order for itself around a household essentially and karmas set in motion. The ending is ruinous of course. All because a man took a wife out of convenience one day.

Curse of the Golden Flower is a Chinese epic drama film directed by Zhang Yimou.It stars big name in the Chinese industry namely Chow Yun- fat and Gong Li together with Jay Chou and Qin Junjie.The movie presents a dying love between two powerful people leads to deceit, infidelity, and conspiracy in this epic-scale historical drama that has been reportedly the biggest budget Chinese film ever made.This Chinese film takes place during the latter days of the Tang dynasty.The Emperor returns home from the war with his son Prince Jai in tow. However, the monarch gets a chilly reception from the Empress; though she's eager to see her son, her marriage has become deeply acrimonious, and she's taken a lover, Crown Prince Wan, her stepson from the Emperor's first marriage. The Emperor, meanwhile, has his own plan for dealing with his failing marriage as he's ordered the Imperial Doctor to find an exotic drug that will drive the Empress insane and administer it to her without her knowledge. However, the doctor's ethical dilemma is intensified by the fact his daughter Chan has fallen in love with Crown Prince Wan and the two wish to elope. As the Emperor and Empress allow their estrangement to sink into violence and retribution, their youngest son, Prince Yu, struggles to keep the peace in the household. The movie was a good one.The acting of the cast was definitely brilliant.It consists of spectacular production designs and giant CGI battles especially the swordplay and fist-cuffs.It was definitely lavish,beautiful and appealing.What never lived up into becoming an epic film is the story and the screenplay.The violent and operatic saga of cruelty and revenge became more of an Asian soap opera and a melodrama that was contrived at some parts especially in the ending.Nevertheless,it is worthy of one's time to watch this film.