The Curse of the Golden Flower

The Crouching Tiger in Winter

'What family doesn't have its ups and downs?" says Elanor of Aquitane in "The Lion in Winter." Some family's more than others. 

Take the royal family in Zhang Yimou's The Curse of the Golden Flower. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) is poisoning the Empress (Gong Li). The Empress has slept with her step-son, the Crown Prince. The CP is sleeping with the daughter of the Emperor's physician--who's providing the poison to the Emperor for the Empress. And the daughter of the physician, she's sleeping with the Crown Prince, too, and, well, it just gets a little messy at this point. And instead of King Henry's family-war of precisely chosen words, this family battles with ever-increasing sizes of armies, internecine plots and even ninjas who call to mind the flying monkeys of The Wizard of Oz albeit with razor-sharp scythes, and throwing weapons.

A technical element that reminds of Wizard is the stunningly ravishing (in all senses of the term) color photography that hasn't been seen since they stopped using the three-color-dye Technicolor process (or since Dorothy clicked her heels together and returned to sepia-toned Kansas). Zhang, even more so than in Hero and The House of Flying Daggers, suffuses the screen with a sumptuous chiaroscuro of reds, lavenders and golds--this is truly one of the most beautiful films to come out this year,* and it more than lives up to Zhang's past flashes of spectacle.

Dramatically, though, the film falls a little flat--setting up a confrontation that gradually escalates from hand to hand combat to eventually rivaling the endlessly epic battle set-pieces in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and as the armies just kept getting bigger and bigger, it brought to my mind an old Chuck Jones cartoon where Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd engaged in a frantically escalating war: from knife to pistol to rifle to rolling cannon to BIG rolling cannon). 

After an extended bloody battle sequence, the movie ends where it began, only with a lot fewer characters and the biggest clean-up operation the Forbidden City has ever seen. Needless to say, there's going to have to be a new planning committee for next year's Chrysanthemum Festival.

The Curse of the Golden Flower is just too beautiful and detailed to be appreciated on the small-screen, but too inconsequential to pay full-price. Find a cheap matinee and enjoy the colors.

* I rushed out to see The Curse... because of the past intimate, intricate sound design of Tao Jing, hoping that he would surpass the masterful job done on The House of Flying Daggers. Alas, although the design is a marvelous skein of chimes and movement, the best sounding film I've heard this year is The Fountain.

Lust, Caution

Lust, Caution aka "Se, jie" aka 色，戒 (Ang Lee, 2007) Despite its NC-17 rating, Lust, Caution is a spy thriller, not a sex film (the "NC" rating was created to separate films of merit that had explicit sexual content from the porn-dominated "X" rating, but it doesn't seem to have translated for mainstream audiences). 

And yet, until later, it's not exactly a spy film, either. It involves infiltration and spying and deception with a means towards assassination, but the activities are not conducted by any government organization (at least not initially), but by activists against an organization. The differences and particulars are minute, as subterfuge and manipulation are the weapons—this could be the "Impossible Missions Force" at work.

If not that infiltrators are amateurs who might be considered just playing a part with severe delusions of grandeur.

It is 1938, and a group of drama students in Japanese occupied Hong-Kong put on a patriotic play that raises donations for the resistance. But the play's director ("Typical director," says one of the actors, "he never listens to anyone else.") decides it's not enough to raise money—a relative of his has discovered his employer is a Chinese collaborator, and the student troupe, in a surge of patriotism (and drunkenness) vow to assassinate the man, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). 

They set up an elaborate ruse insinuating two of the troupe as prominent business-people and over shopping trips and mah-jongg games befriend Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen). Before long, the smartest and most gifted of the actors, Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) has caught Yee's eye, and makes plans to set him up for the kill.

Despite spending hours at the movie theaters watching Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant movies (Lee uses them specifically), she would have saved herself a lot of grief if she'd seen the only movie the two starred in together, Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946)." Spying is probably the world's second oldest profession, seeing how inexorably linked it is with the first. In Notorious, Bergman's floozy socialite is used by intelligence services to infiltrate a Nazi cell by playing on the affections of one of its leaders. She's a honey trap, using her target's weakness for her as a weapon. Her superiors (in all matters, save moral) are only too willing to let Bergman's character prostitute herself for their ends. And like Louis Calhern and his hypocritical Notorious cronies, the actors-playing-resisters are only too willing (while feeling somewhat guilty) to let Chia Chi seduce Yee.

The preparations come for naught, however, even though Chia Chi has managed to put Yee under her spell and he is tempted by her. Before any real seduction/assassination can take place,  Yee and his wife move back to Shanghai and the company disbands, but not before killing one of Yee's circle, who had become aware of the plan.

Move ahead four years to 1942 Shanghai where things have changed: Kuang (Leehom Wang), the leader of the drama club now works for the Nationalist Party's secret service, the Juntong, and Mr. Yee is now head of the secret police, whose job is to eliminate Chinese resisters and members of the party—known as the KMT. Things have changed but, when Kuang encounters Chia that old plan resurfaces and with the Juntong's blessing, Kuang begins the process anew—upgraded with weapons training and being given a suicide pill if she is discovered—with the stakes now dangerously higher.

Chia Chi meets with Yang—who remembers her as "Mrs. Mai," her role in the initial attempt—and Yee, still smitten with the woman, falls for the plot. Discreet meals become clandestine meetings, schedules re-shuffled, sex initiated—first roughly, crudely and Yee is shamed by Chia's outrage and hurt, then more intimate, considerate—but Chia finds the details of arranging the assassination challenging, not only for the stalling of the KMT "for strategic reasons," but because she is starting to have feelings for Yee and she wants the assignment over, done with. She is starting to fall into dangerous ground, where, though she may betray her body, her mask of subterfuge is at risk and her core emotions may be exposed and threatened. The lie is becoming real and her initial sense of purpose and her love of self and country (in the larger scheme of things) may be compromised.

But this is where the drama is. Lust, Caution was attacked by some for its "plodding" pace (its far subtler than Hitchcock and the unsubtle sex is distracting) and for its contained emotions (it is a spy film, after all), but it deals with masquerades and the subjugation of self for appearance, something that everybody knows and buys into as a matter of course, especially in this sub-set of thrillers. But, in a game of manipulation, hearts can't be worn on sleeves and deception is a strategy of truth suppressed and artifice as shell. For Lee, its another of his "repression" films, be it Sense and Sensibility or Hulk or Brokeback Mountain where the Id's fight is the prominent conflict on-screen.

As far as spies are concerned, this is the very well-plowed field that John le Carré has toiled in for years, where the loyalty of the heart betrays loyalty to duty or country. Intimacy creates allegiance. Consideration creates confusion. Depending what side of the War (Cold or Hot) you situate the tale, it is a Triumph of the Will for good or bad. Do you betray the mission or do you betray yourself? The trail of the heart leads to rapture or an early grave.

Lust, Caution has been unfairly neglected as a great work, with accusations of more emphasis being paid on the key players to the detriment of the historical context (and the stakes involved that would lead a woman to such actions—one hesitates to say it, given political turmoil's costs, but in a tale of the Soul, it's nearly as dismissible as a McGuffin), and for its sexual content—which amounts to five minutes of the film's 2 1/2 hour length (in its unexpurgated form)—and for which, as a result, actress Wei Tang experienced a professional black-listing (but not Tony Leung, interestingly but not surprisingly) despite a truly great dramatic performance. These are small and smallish arguments. Looking at the larger picture, Lust, Caution slots in so well with both the intricacies of the spy genre and Lee's ouvre, and one day, one hopes it might be re-discovered as a highlight of both lists.

Ciang Chee realizes her friends have no problems prostituting her.

In The Mood For Love

In the Mood for Love (aka Faa Yeung Nin Wa, 花樣年華, Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)

"It is a restless moment. She has kept her head lowered...to give him a chance to come closer. But he could not, for lack of courage. She turns and walks away."

They are ships that pass in the night...or the hall-way. Mrs. Chow (Maggie Cheung) and Mr. Chan (Tony Leung) rent rooms next door in the same Hong Kong building (circa 1962) and move in the same day, meeting when they exchange items mis-placed by the movers. She works as an assistant for a shipping company. He works as a journalist. Sometimes, the hours are long, but not so frequently that they can't spend time with their spouses.

But, they can't. Both spouses work more erratic schedules and are frequently away "on business." We never see them, only hear their voices in other rooms or over the phone. Mr. Chan's wife is only identified by her flip hair style and Mr. Chow (in the only time we see him from the back) has the same brylcreemed hair as Mr. Chan. But, they have a lot more in common than just off-schedules and domiciles. And for being neighbors, Mrs. Chow and Mr. Chan share a lot, as well.

They spend a lot of time apart from their spouses, and given the cramped quarters of the hallways, they sometimes dance out of each others' ways. They frequently eat alone, and walk the streets at night to get food—Mrs. Chow with her noodle thermos and Mr. Chan eating at the alley-way cookery. Their land-people take note of the odd hours and their alonen-ess. They get invited to dinner, but they are appeciatively waved off. Mrs. Chow works for Mr. Ho, and must work with her boss' needs for scheduling and gifting his wife and his mistress. Sometimes, the gift is the same thing, even matching color.

Gifts are exchanged in the adjoining apartments, as well. New rice cookers, ties and hand-bags. But, familiarity breeds suspicion. After passing each other on a fairly regular basis, Mr. Chan makes the excuse of acquiring an imported hand-bag for his wife to ask Mrs. Chow out to dinner and the two compare notes—Mr. Chan is wearing the same imported tie that Mrs. Chow says her husband was gifted by (according to her husband) "his boss." And the two realize that their mutual spouses are probably having an affair. Small world, Hong Kong.

They walk back to their place, both in a bit of shock. He speculates who made the first move, and he's sure it was her husband, and he in turn wonders if they should pay them back in kind. Mrs. Chow briefly smiles, then turns dark refusing to stoop to their level. He then says it doesn't matter who made the first move—it's already happened. She turns on him: "Do you really know your wife?" And stalks off.

But, they meet again...discreetly, of course. It's Hong Kong in the 1960's and marriage is between a man and a woman, but anything else? It attracts talk. It attracts suspicion. And they've made a vow; they won't be like them. But, they have a bond, and they hurt, and so they discuss, share experiences and feelings and meals, trying to understand each other's situations. It's therapy, and they're doing nothing wrong. But still, no one must know.

They rehearse her confronting her husband about the affair, practice it, for when the time comes. She asks him what he'll do, and he thinks he'll do what he did before he had to be part of a couple—go see movies, he may even write that martial arts serial that he wants to do. She likes them, too—she's borrowed his collection; why doesn't she help him write? The idea seems absurd to her, but soon they are both writing, separately, comparing notes. But, then they have to write together and when they try at his place, she's trapped when the neighbors come home early and decide to play an all-night mahjong game.

That doesn't work. They can't work and the serial is getting attention (the kind they might want), so he rents a room away from their mutual place. But, the stigma if they're caught scares her and she resists going there. It is difficult to trust, at this point, and what if it becomes something more? But, one trepidatious visit and her fears are calmed. It's business and it's joyful and they both enjoy the writing.

They love it, in fact. And as he says, at one point, "these feelings creep up on you." They don't talk about love. They don't talk about their need. But, they feel it, and, at one point, he announces that his paper is short-staffed in Singapore—she's not going to leave her husband, anyway—why not take it?

Why not? Because it'll break their already broken hearts is why. But, they're already enured to that feeling, numb to it, even, and they can't carry on this way and it has to be curtailed. Doesn't make it any less painful, no matter how numb they are.

In the Mood for Love is tough stuff, while at the same time being one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Taking 15 months to shoot from the bare-bones outline of a script, it outlasted the availability of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, whose work here is mesmerizing (the film was completed by Lee Pin-Bing), along with the production/costume design and editing of William Chang, and the vivid eye of Wong, all done in eye-popping Technicolor in Hitchcock-psychology reds and greens. Because the story is told through image, some audiences might get lost—especially if they're depending on sub-titles to show the way—and the movie evokes a fragile, sensory-heightened time with its rich palette and it's frequent languid slowed motion effects that lull and stretch out the moments of joy or loneliness that evoke the numbed state of surviving alone-ness.

There is a visceral precision to it—like Cheung's elaborate 60's hair-do's and the taught perfection of wardrobe right down to the seams in her nylons—despite the wandering eye of Wong's camera or the disparate soundtrack of songs—that invoke deeply buried emotions that are repressed both in a society and in individuals, the need which goes unfulfilled by choice or duty, suffered in silence, but exquisite in its pain.

In the Name of Love keeps the emotions buried and only gives it full-flower in the vividness that burbles to the surface and enchants the eye. It is a platonic love story told in erotic hues, both beautiful and painful. 

It's one of "those" must-see films.