Chinese title

Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia

 

Literal title

Fill the City with

Golden Armors

 

English title

Curse of

the Golden Flower

 

Working English title

The City of

Golden Armor

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER Won for Its Art Direction and Costume Design (...)

 

 

February 19, 2007

 
 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

Last week, American Art Directors Guild decided to present the annual award for Excellence in Production Design for a Period Film to Curse of the Golden Flower's art director Huo Tingxiao, the man who were also involved in the production of Zhang Yimous's Hero and House of the Flying Dagger.

 

This week, American Costume Designers Guild picked Yee Chung-Man's work in Curse of the Golden Flower as last year's best in a period film. Congratulations to Yee, who has worked in over a dozen Hong Kong productions, like Peace Hotel, Tokyo Raider, Golden Chicken, Perhaps Love and the Ci Ma remake (aka. This Violent Land). This award may help him a little bit at the coming Oscar.

 

Art Directors Guild official website

Costume Designers Guild official website

 

Art directors honor trio - Top prizes go to 'Flower,' 'Labyrinth,' 'Casino', by Laura Repstad, Variety

Costume designers pick 'Flower' - 'Labyrinth,' 'Queen' win guild awards, by Eric Stitt, Variety

 
 

     
   
     
     

 

The Oscar Nomination (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)  

 

January 23, 2007  

(Beijing New Picture Film Co, Li Li Er.)

Curse of Golden Flowers is nominated for Best Costume Design. Congratulations to Yee Chung-Man (Ci Ma, Perhaps Love, Comrades: Almost  a Love Story, A Terracotta Warrior). The film is not in Best Foreign Language list, as as Volver.

Ruby Yang and Thomas Lonnon's The Blood of Yingzhou District is nominated for "Documentary Short". It follows the story of a little boy named Gao Jun, from Yingzhou, Anhui Province of eastern China. He is one of 75,000 so-called AIDS Orphans now living in China. His parents died after being infected with HIV through blood seller. After he was rejected by his relatives, he was sent to live with two foster parents, who were also HIV positive. A year after, his HIV symptom appeared and he had to take medication made for adults because medication for children was hard to find in China. His foster parents could not afford his medical expense and he had to move to a another foster family.

 

The nomination list.

 
 

 

Monkeypeaches' The Best of 2006 (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)

 

 

December 31, 2006  

Best of 2006

The year of 2006 is about to be over and the time to tell you my list of best Chinese language movies released in the year. Most people of world have never seen most of movies I am about to say. Also, the ranking does not means one is absolutely better than the others. Here we go:

 

 

 

1. Curse of the Golden Flower

 

An emperor runs his family like a clock. He orders his wide, whom he never loved, to take one dose of medicine for each hour she is awake, even though she is not ill. His favorite son, the crown prince, the only child he had with his deceased ex-wife, seems only interested in having an affair with his stepmother and a court maid. The middle prince, who loves his mother more than his father, is the best candidate for inheriting the empire. The emperor knows that. He would pass the job to his second son, but not before killing his mother, who is planning something very big. Zhang Yimou carefully tells us a story of how a family, already rots from the inside, collapses in just one night. What more can we ask for if Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li are on the screen together and Zhang Yimou turns the best from his brain into a vision wonder, which could suffocate your mind?

 

 

2. Crazy Stone

 

A precious stone is discovered in a toilet of a practically bankrupted craft factory. The factory's security chief, who is very upset about not becoming a cop, is assigned to guard the stone, which will be auctioned to save the factory, the only source of income for many people. Three thieves, who have never made much out of their crimes, see the stone as their chance of getting rich for real. A greedy real estate developer, who would like to collect the factory, hires a professional thief to steal the stone. 30 year old Ning Hao wrote and directed this probably most entertaining comedy ever comes out of China. This extravaganza is a real surprise, a movie fan made for other movie fans. Sure people may find it similar to a Guy Ritchie movie. But it is so enjoyable - so what? Nobody would think about that one day a movie can expose so many social problems in today's China in such a hilarious way. Millions of ordinary Chinese have enjoyed the movie. Even the premier ordered a private screen to get to know the misery of the bottom of the working class.

 

 

3. Exiled

 

Four hitmen arrive in Macao to meet the fifth man now quietly lives with wife. It turns out five of them once worked together in another job years ago in Hong Kong. Now they get together and each one has a mind of his own.  Director Johnnie To is the man, maybe in only man (besides John Woo), who is capable of telling interesting stories about criminals, really really cool criminals and Exiled is really safe to be considered as another success story in Johnnie To's career. This one will probably never reach your local theaters. When you are searching it either in a DVD store or a web vendor, remember: make sure you get the Hong Kong version. The mainland Chinese version is really a shame.

 

 

4. Still Life

 

In a city is gradually flooded after the gigantic Three Georges Dam is built, a man arrives to look for his ex-"wife" he "purchased" and their 16 year old daughter and a woman arrives to look for his husband who has not contacted her for two years. The man finally meets his ex-wife and they decide to get married again and the woman asks for a devoice after realizing his husband is now living with another woman. Still Life surprisingly joined the competition of this year's Venice International Film Festival when the festival had already begun and several days later surprisingly captured the Golden Lion. A dam is being built and a town built over two thousand years ago  disappears under water. Millions of people lose their homes and move to their new homes far away. Countless people are making a few hundred a month by turning their town into rubbles and a few others make millions by building a new town at high ground. Many great ironies could be found in this movie, if you could stand the slow drama.

 

 

5. Jasmine Women

 

In the 1930's Mo dreams about becoming a movie star and becomes the mistress of a studio manager. But an unplanned daughter makes ends her dream. In the 1950s, Li has a caring husband and an adopted daughter but Li's mind is slowly losing control. In the 1980s, Hua is pregnant but her husband decides to leave her for another woman. Cinematographer Hou Yong made his second directorial work. This is not an epic story about how China changes in the 20th Century but a small drama about four generations of women in an ordinary Shanghai family. Zhang Ziyi and Joan Chen, two great actresses, really make the movie work.

 

 

6. Courthouse on the Horseback

 

A judge, who almost reaches the age of retirement, a secretary, who is about to lose her job because of a newly introduced regulation, a young man, who just graduated from a law school. They travels to remote mountain villages to solve civil disputes. In the end, the young man runs away with his bride, the secretary finally retires and the judge continues the journey alone. Director Liu Jie makes a rare look at the life of the minority people living in remote mountains of southwestern China with this quiet and touching little drama shot in documentary style.

 

 

 

 

7. Little Red Flowers

 

A kindergarten in the 1960s Beijing, a young boy shows up and making himself fitting in is probably the biggest challenge he has ever faced. Director Zhang Yuan presented us an innocent story about the world of the kindergarteners, based on the semi-biographical novel by Beijing writer Wang Shuo. This is not a movie for kids, but rather something for the grownup to relive their childhood.

 

 

8. After This Our Exile

 

A gambling addicted father is the real trouble for his family of three. Mother decides to leave but the son wants to stay with his father, who has never recovered from his problems and turns his son to thief. After being silent for 17 years, Hong Kong New Wave director Patrick Tam makes a triumph return with his truly sad story, which is inspired by a true story Tam discovered in the 1990s.

 

 

 

 

9. Confession of Pain

 

A senior cop's father-in-law is brutally murdered and all evidences point to two jobless men. But his wife believes in something else and to get into the bottom of the truth, she hires a private detective, some once working for the senior cop. Andrew Lau and Alan Mak  tell a story of gradually unfolding the unspeakable sad stories of two men, which in some sense, surpassed what they achieved with the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

 

 

 

 

10. Dog Bite Dog

 

A Cambodian young cold-blooded killer comes to Hong Kong to kill a local judge's wife and a redneck cop is in charge of solving the case. Two men clash and their struggle turns into a brutal game raw killing. Director Soi CHEANG makes sure this movie extremely violent while keeping the gory scenes as realistic as possible. This is not a movie everyone would enjoy but is definitely something some people will talk about years later.

 

The runner-up:

2 Become 1,
A Battle of Wits,
Dragon Tiger Gate,
Dreams May Come,
Election 2: Harmony Is a Virtue,
Fearless,
Feel It, Say It,
I'll Call You,
Isabella,
Karmic Mahjong,
Luxury Car,
McDull, the Alumni,
One Foot of the Ground,
Perpetual Motion,
Rob-B-Hood,
The Banquet,
The Contract ,
The Forest Ranger,
The Knot ,
The Road,
The Shoe Fairy,
You and Me,
Yuan Ming Yuan.

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co., Focus Films, Milkyway Images, Xstream Pictures, Poly Hua Yi, China Film Group, Vision Films, Ar Port, Inc.)

 
 

 

Review: CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)

 

 

December 21, 2006

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

 

With a cast of the best Chinese actors, a crew of the best from the trade and 45 million American dollars, director has made sure every frame people see on the big screen deserves every penny they paid at the box-office counter. Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou’s the third multi-multi million dollar historical drama, is a lavish feast of colors, gold especially, and a emotional drama about how a rotten royal family collapses in just one night.

 

Bare this in mind, it is not fair to thumb down the film just because the production design is overwhelming and it is not fair to disappoint just because martial-art is not as big as in Zhang’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and it is also not fair to dismiss the drama as a Shakespearean-like soap just because the reviewer fails to catch the deeper layer of the story.

 

The story took place in an autumn during China’s Tang Dynasty during a period called “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms” (907 – 1125); or it doesn’t matter, because it is based on Lei Yü (Thunderstorm), a play Cao Yü written in early 1930s and was about a story took place in early 1930s China.

 

Emperor Ping, played by the amazing Chow Yun-Fat, is a quiet but menacing ruler, who is never tolerant anyone or anything of his empire fails to run like a clock according to the rule he set. His gigantic palace compound is lavishly decorated with gold and precious stones. He orders everyone from his family, including himself to wear chokingly lavish golden robes everyday. But just like what Zhang Yimou said in one of his interviews, “Gold and jade on the outside, rot and decay on the inside”, the imperial family is in the final stage of cancer and each member is either twisted or corrupted.

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

The emperor’s wife, Empress Phoenix, played by the gorgeously gorgeous Gong Li, has been ill for many year, at least that’s what has been claimed by the emperor, who seems more interested in being a pharmacist than a ruler. For decades, the emperor is forcing his wife to drink one dose of medicine each hour, even those he hates it. There has never been love or anything remotely similar to love in between them. She was the princess of the King of Liang and married Ping purely for political purpose. Phoenix is have a secret affair with Prince Wan (Liu Ye), the Crown Prince and the emperor’s first born, who has felt sick about his relationship with his stepmom and turned his attention to a cute court maid Jiang Chan (Li Man), daughter of the imperial doctor (Ni Dahong). Wan is the emperor’s favorite son, maybe because his mother was dead when he was very young. Wan has no interest of the throne and the emperor knows the one right for the job is actually Prince Jie (played by super-diva Jay Chou), the mid-son of the imperial family, who loves his birth mother Phoenix and hates everything the emperor has done. The emperor has his plan – he would pass the power to his second son, but before doing so, he would kill his mother first. But of cause, the Empress has her own plan. This only cover about the first half hour of the movie, just in case you think the story is complicated enough. There are more to come – who is the imperial doctor’s wife (Chen Jin) and why does she work for the empress, why phoenix keeps making embroidered chrysanthemum despite her deteriorating health, and what the youngest Prince Cheng (Qin Junjie) have in mind? You need to see the movie to get the answers.

 

Chow Yun-Fat is badder than ever in the film and having been in the business for three decades, he is on the top of his career, even better than what he did in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. His trip to the Hollywood is regretfully a failure. Neither Replacement Killer nor Bulletproof Monk offers him any role more than cheap reproduction of roles he played in John Woo’s classics. I don’t really expect anything from Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End. What he plays is deemed to be something one-dimension stereotypical.

 

We have waited more than a decade to see Gong Li working again with Zhang Yimou. The waiting is worth every second of her screen time. At the age of 41, she is dead on portraying a desperate housewife crashed bit by bit by her sick-minded husband. Her performance in Memoirs of the Geisha is good but restricted, her part in Miami Vice is nothing more than a joke, and what about Lady Murasaki in Hannibal Rising? No I don’t think so.

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

Curse of the Golden Flower is only the second movie for Jay Chou stars in but and he has proved he could act other than singing. Liu Ye must be the favorite man for playing some with a weak mind. He was wasted in The Promise last year, but his time, he did his part just right. Chen Jin and Ni Dahong, as skilled actors, and Li Man and Qin Junjie, as new to the industry, played all made their small parts memorable.

 

The set, I just have to say something about the set. The palaces you will see in the movie, may look so unreal, but are actually part of a near full-scale replica of Beijing’s The Forbidden City, built in Hengdian World Studios. The palace interior was built inside Beijing Film Studios. The imperial post was built in the bottom of a place called “Heavenly Pit” near Chongqing city. Contrary to what he did for Hero, designer Huo Tingxiao made the set lavishly suffocating.

 

Zhang Yimou has push game of color into a new level and the cinematography Zhao Xiaoding’s (House of Flying Daggers, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles) made these colors alive. Costumer Yee Chung-Man (Perhaps Love, Comrades: Almost a Love Story) perfectly transferred Zhang Yimou’s idea of “golden armor” (as in the original Chinese title) to the real thing. Ching Siu-Tung returned as the action director. The fight sequences are no longer in slow-motion and seem lasting forever. They are short, quick and effective.

 

Curse of the Golden Flower is like a scaled-up remake of Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern. You should always remind yourself, while watching it – don’t just simply blown away by the colors, the actions and the overly exposed women’s chest (women did dressed like that at that time), otherwise you will miss many layers of the nicely written and carefully told story.

 

- MP

 
 

 

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER Reviews (...)

 

 

December 19, 2006

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

Moriarty of AICN, John Li of movieXclusive.com and J-Skell all love this film. There reviews cannot be found at RottenTomatoes..

 

 

Review by Moriarty of Aintitcool.com.

Review by John Li of movieXclusive.com. (Thanks to Ethan Teo.)

Review by J-Skell.

 
 

 

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER's First Weekend Revenue: US$12.3 millions (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)

 

 

December 18, 2006

 

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

96 million yuans (US$12.3 millions), that was how much the Chinese paid in the past weekend to see Zhang Yimou's latest mega-budget historical epic, Curse of the Golden Flower, according to Beijing New Picture Film Co., which co-produced the film. This unbelievably high number more than doubles the old record (US$6.04 millions), set by Hero, Zhang's first mega budget historical drama, released four years ago. Zhang Weiping, president of Beijing New Picture Film Co., said many people went to see the movie because of good words of mouth. He is predicting another good performance during the second weekend because many theaters in China will run overnight screenings at the Christmas Eve. The movie is already shown on most screens in the country and number of such screens is on the rise. But it is still hard to tell weather the revenue from the domestic box-office will cover the US$45 millions spent on making it. Starting next week, the film will be released in the rest of Asia and North America.

 
 

 

Zhang Yimou's GOLDEN FLOWER Is CURSED TO Break A Money Record (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)

 

 

December 16, 2006

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

The flower might be cursed, but the movie is not, at least not in China. According to Beijing New Picture Film Co., which co-produced Zhang Yimou's latest mega budget historical epic Curse of the Golden Flower, the film collected over 15 million yuans (US$1.92 millions) at the opening night (Thursday) in China, a new record of the country. The number would be much higher if the release on Thursday were not "limited." The movie is now shown on most screens in China, from as early as eight in the morning to as late as twelve in the evening. However, the first night revenue only recovered a very small percentage of the US$45 millions spent on making it.

 

 

 

 
 

 

Opening This Week:  December 9 - 15 (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)

 

 

December 15, 2006

 
Curse of the Golden Flower Still Life

(Beijing New Picture Film Co., Xstream Pictures.)

Story of an imperial family rots from within, a man looks for the woman he once lived with and a woman looks the man she no longer love...

 

Click here for detail

 

 
 

 

More CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER Stuffs (Sina.com.cn)

 

 

December 12, 2006

 

(Beijing New Picture Film Co.)

 

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