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Zhang Yimou lets his imagination fly...to a wall

By Vivien Wang (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-12-29 14:17



After twenty years of making movies about the poor country life in China,
director Zhang Yimou has switched to portraying ancient, affluent China,
albeit in an unusual way, in his latest flick 'Curse of the Golden City'.



Director Zhang Yimou says his two goals in making the film were to use
every penny of the 4.5 million Dollars investment to create a splendid
visual feast and to coach the actors and actresses into accurately
portraying the bloody, dirty and brutal palace intrigue. Fortunately he
accomplishes both by the end of the movie. This however, does not divert
the audience from the fact that: Director Zhang Yimou's creativity is
dead.

Being short of imagination, Zhang had to copy the whole plot from a
widely known drama "Thunder Storm" by Cao Yu. He changes Cao's theme of
"conflicts in a big family" into "intrigue in a royal family", allowing
family fights to result in military butchering. Zhang showed such little
creativity in the whole plot that criticisms of the movie's weak
storyline started as soon as its premiere ended. Killers walk through the
bright palace without being afraid of the guards, royalty address each
other in confusing names; the empress sews a scarf for every soldier as a
symbol of rebellion, making such a fuss that almost everyone in the
palace knows the secret��

In order to whitewash his deficiencies, Zhang exaggerates almost
everything in the story to stimulate the audience, which results in
something that looks like an expensive commercial.

The most eye-popping parts of the movie worth mentioning are the actress'
cleavages. Almost all the women in the movie wear revealing costumes.
From the empress to the maids, women show off their assets in incredibly
tight dresses, with their breasts ready to pop out. Although many
netizens criticized the movie for its busty wardrobe, many men watched
the movie for the skin.

Actress Gong Li, who starred as the empress , defended the wardrobe
choices. She says the costumes were designed after the fashions of the
Tang Dynasty during which the movie is set.

This is a perfect example of Zhang exaggerating as much as possible to
enhance the movie.. In addition, the emperor and empresses' robes are
made of real gold, and the screen is constantly filled with gold flowers
and soldiers. Is the visual feast enough to distract the audience from
Zhang's adaptation of the storyline? He'd better hope so.








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