'Curse' of the soap opera

No one can deny that Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou is one of Asia's greatest filmmakers. Having built a strong career with human dramas such as "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Ju Dou," then completely taking a different direction with masterful martial arts entries "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," I'm disappointed to say that Yimou's latest effort, "Curse of the Golden Flower," is the worst film he has ever made. \nYimou reunites with actress Gong Li after 10 years of separation along with Chow Yun-Fat to make one melodramatic soap opera of a mess set in the Late Tang Dynasty, full of so many plot twists and backstabs it might've made more sense had it been made for television. Li is Empress Phoenix, who plots a coup to overthrow her husband, Emperor Ping (Yun-Fat). Secretly, Ping has begun poisoning his wife through her daily medicine she takes for anemia. Why do they want to kill each other? We never really know. \nEveryone screams, cries and gets upset at one another; princes attempt suicide while incestuous relationships occur between mother and son -- it's all so overbearing you could choke on the sudsy bubbles in the air. While Yimou still has no problem filming action-packed fight scenes, in "Curse" the CG at times becomes too evident to really enjoy the sequences and the fuzzy, unfocused look only makes the film more laughable. \nOne could praise the cinematography and art direction which coats practically every frame of "Curse," but after about 20 minutes, I grew tired of it. The Forbidden City looks as if it were built in Las Vegas: Hall after hall coated in gold plating brimming with kaleidoscopic rainbow colorization that, unlike "Hero" and "House," lacks visual poetry only to be replaced with gaudy opulence. \nPerhaps it is time Yimou stepped away from the martial arts period piece and returned to his roots. I say this because this past year his other new film, "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles," was released theatrically in the United States and it is one of his strongest, most emotionally rewarding works. Unfortunately it only received a limited release. \nNo director is infallible and "Curse" only goes to show that even the filmmakers we feel we trust the most can end up disappointing us. Thankfully, for Zhang Yimou, his long list of successes outweigh one minor embarrassment.