Curse of the Golden Flower & The Banquet (aka 'Legend of the Black Scorpion') (2006)

[Guest Tosh]

I'm getting rather tired of these so-called martial arts epics with art film pretensions.

I'm with you there.

[Guest BKarza]

7H, I'm glad that you mentioned that. I have found most of these non hk wu xia movies to be pretentious. CTHD, especially Hero, especially.

They are so sulky, gowny and many times pompous. They don't feel genuine. You can tell that they are going for that foreign oscar nomination or international recognition, on purpose. You often times hear folks mention how these are made/tailored for western audiences. I saw that with CTHD. You knew wha Ang Lee was doing. In my opinion, Fearless falls in with these as well.

They don't really care to get the martial side "right", because that's not what they are going for. They don't care about that, that's just part of what they need to get the story done.

I like HoFD more than most, and don't disagree with complaints about it, esp. the lack of HoFD resolve. I found that the chemistry between ZYY and TK really worked. I was drawn to that.

Hero was...pompous. How many times can TLCW die? Am I supposed to care after the 9th time? The sullen faces and saddness? ANOTHER stone faced Jet Li performance? Nothing here to care about or draw me in. Pretentious filmmaking turns me off. How can you tell if a movie is going to be that? A filmmaker from the mainland or Taiwan comes out of the blue and says he's going to make a wu xia picture.

[Guest limubai2000]

I didn't see Banquet as a martial arts epic, or a martial arts movie for that matter. Really its a retelling of Shakespeare set in China, the martial arts scenes just took the place of straight up european medieval fighting.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I want to see Curse of the Golden Flower just because of hottie Gong Li. She was smokin' in Miami Vice which I just saw on DVD. :smokin

[Guest rdenn]

there was a fight scene in that banquet with daniel wu fighting some guards and their was no proper sounds in the fight, a total turn off.

[Guest MANOZEN]

Hi ,

There have been tv trailer spots for CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER playing on HKTV the last couple of weeks . Chow looks excellent with a very commanding presence , plus the epic proportions of Gong Li . The short clips definately hooked my interest .

MANOZEN

[Guest kingofkungfu2002]

If you wanna try 'The Banquet' before you buy, you can get it on Google video (in 2 parts - with subtitles)

Banquet - Part 1

Banquet - Part 2

[Guest BKarza]

CotGF trailer.

[Guest wudawg]

Thanks for the link kingofkungfu2002. I just finished watching the Banquet. Not a bad film, more dramatic than martial arts. I didn't mind the fight scenes. I thought they were well done from what I could tell.

I did like the fact that my company, Technicolor did the color timing on it. I didn't realize that until the credits rolled. Very cool.

[Guest The Running Man]

I saw this yesterday,

Basically it's a bit better than House of Flying Daggers, which isn't saying much since I believe that movie was crap, but it happens to be less memorable because House had some great set pieces and the cinematography and music were fantastic.

I am beginning to wonder if Hero, which was a masterpiece, was Zhang Yimou's fluke on wuxia films.

[Guest morgoth]

Better than HOFD!!!!! I hope it is, I HOFD was almost as good as Hero.

[Guest The Running Man]

Well, just to let you and everyone else know...don't walk into Curse expecting a good amount of fights in it. There's very little action in the movie (the best on IMO was the very first when Chow Yun Fat tests out his son's skills).

In fact, most of it are big epic war battles rather than any martial arts fights.

[Guest rdenn]

i saw the first fight in curse of flower and chow does some good "not looking" swordplay.

[Guest dyenboy]

aite..jus bought and saw banquet..and all I have to say..it was really slow..if you are tired..do not watch this movie..cause u will fall asleep..

there were some good fight scenes..but really really really slow..

hopefully cogl will be better

[Guest dager in the cotton]

Just seen Curse, and that's exactly what I did after leaving the cinema, this film is dull to say the least, there are hardly any fights and when there is action it's the lame 2nd hand choreo that we've seen a dozen times or more, this film is like most of the stuff coming out of China nowadays ,over long, over hyped, over acted pretensious, vulgar and crass, the people who made it should be sent for re- education, its a big leap backwards.

bring back 2 men in a field doing snake and mantis

[Guest rdenn]

i agree dagger, i to am finding these type of films annoying , the only bit i liked was the chows sword play scene and those hooks guardsman chow had, that was about it, all that colour doesnt impress me , a good old shape would.

[Guest dyenboy]

so to whomever that watched it cursed..is it as slow as banquet or is it a much faster pace..like action oriented?

[Guest BKarza]

Don't go into these for the action. That's not what they are.

[Guest limubai2000]

Don't go into these for the action. That's not what they are.

Absolutely 100% right BK. I think what is/has been happening is that in the hunger for 80s/90s HK action alot of fans are watching these newer Chinese films which are a far cry from that. I sort of see 2 trends here, fans that can "cross over" into more story oriented films like Banquet or Curse and fans that cannot. The latter when seeing these films really tear into them something awful. Again film is a subjective thing as we saw in our dicussion of Fearless.

I think if the action-heads would steer away from these newer films until they know for sure if they are more action or more story they might be less prone to being let down.

After I watched Banquet again, I enjoyed it more because I wasn't so much looking at the martial arts. I obviously was somewhat prone to this trend. I still think Banquet is a slow film.

[Guest dager in the cotton]

I agree with you,but the problem is that they market thease films as Martial arts masterpieces from Yuen Woo Ping, Cheng Xiao Dong etc. Woo Ping's name was larger on the poster for Banquet than the director.

and FYI Cruse is a lot slower than Banquet, I think House of flying daggers was the best of the new bunch of the Mainland films, Fearless could have been good (first 45 mins great) but as usual with Chinese film makers they saw they were making something good and said "let's spoil it"

[Guest Tosh]

bring back 2 men in a field doing snake and mantis

Amen|I

The problem isn't the fans, it's the lack of action films that the latter fan craves, I enjoy I great drama as much as the next person, but that's all that's coming out right now, and I agree, they try to sell these films as martial art films, when they're more drama oriented, which seems to be more of a trend from Chinese TV, I think out of all the films coming out of HK/China, only Hero and CTHD balanced the drama and action to the point were it was at least a happy medium (I'm sure many people will disagree with this;) ), there's nothing wrong with these movies, but lets get back to just a good ole kung fu movie!

[Guest dyenboy]

I wasn't expecting great action but I dun want to bored when I watch it.

Is the movie like the promise?

[Guest Elhcay]

The problem with those recent big-budget so-called story-driven movies from cross-genre bigtime directors since House of Flying Daggers is they lack a decent script. They were supposed to be drama oriented, yet the plot is the weakest link. Everything is so contrived and artificial. They are pompously flashy without much of a substance, and all have ridiculous settings or endings or both in which everyone is at each other's throat and end up having everyone dying. They should learn from HK directors about making movies, like Battle of Wits by Cheung Chi Leung, it's has the right elements to hold things together, and is a sincere attempt, true labour of love, not something made just for the sake of wowing the audience.

[Guest dager in the cotton]

They make big productins in the hope of winning an Oscar, for best costumes, art direction etc as to them this is more important than anything.

[Guest BKarza]

This is it in a nutshell. " They make big productions in the hope of winning an Oscar"