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dangermousieAs I mentioned, I saw the Chinese movie The Curse of the Golden Flower with the lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
smartylibrarian last night.
TCotGF deals with the Imperial Family in the 10th Century as they prepare for the Chrysanthemum Festival: all the intrigues, dysfunction, and plotting that surround them, and the wreck they leave in their wake. The acting is all around excellent, with Chow Yun-Fat especially mesmerizing as the Emperor, who scared me even though he was only on celluloid, and the gorgeous Gong Li as his mad, equally scary wife. Jay Chou’s Jai, the middle of the three Imperial princes, was my favorite character though, and the bond between him and his mother was my favorite relationship in the movie.
I am not going to post pics (because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miss_dian has already done an amazing picspam here) but I do want to blab about it.
It’s going to be behind the cut, as the labyrinthine plot is too good to spoil, so all I will say outside the cut is: if you like complicated family dramas, or period movies, or gorgeous art design, and don’t mind tragedy, go run to the nearest theater.
You know, I think my jaw might literally have been hanging open by the end of this amazing movie, more like a Wagnerian Opera than anything film-like.
The thought that kept echoing in my head at the end was ‘The monster won.’
It really was.
Because the Emperor won at the end, and I couldn’t believe it, and it was inevitable. If you think about it, in a grim struggle like this: in imperial politics, in struggle for control, of course the evilest one would win.
He would win because he was the cleverest, because he had no weaknesses. None of his sons could have bested him. The youngest one was not very capable (his coup attempt was beyond pathetic), but even twisted as he was, killing his oldest brother, he was still not ruthless enough. If you notice, he wanted his father to abdicate, he didn’t try to kill him. But the Emperor had no such scruples.
In a way, the youngest son, loathsome as he was, was yet another victim of the hot-house, messed up palace life. If he was a modern teenager, he’d dye his hair four different colors and graffiti the walls. Not this. This was his reaction to lack of parental attention. Because his father was all about the Crown Prince Wan (the one chink in the Emperor’s armor was his oldest son: look at his grief when he dies, look at his tenderness with him, look at him forgiving him for the affair with the Empress, his stepmother. Anyone else would have been dead. I wonder if it’s a reflection of his feelings towards his first wife, but about her more later). The father respected Jai for his ability but I did not get any love there, at all. And for the Empress, she was all about Jai, their emotional bond incredibly strong. Neither of the royal parents noticed the youngest son. Ironically, even in his rebellion and death he was outshone by his older brothers. Even though the Emperor killed him, himself (in a horrifying scene, with that heavy jeweled belt), he dropped him like he didn’t exist in order to hold Wan in his arms. And during that whole scene, the Empress was more occupied by Wan dying (on their relationship more below) and the fact that her beloved Jai is about to attack than the fate of her youngest (also contrast Jai’s competent, planned rebellion with the youngest’s aborted one. What would he do even if Daddy Dearest abdicated. He’d still have Jai with his 10,000 there).
But to get back as to why the Emperor won. Wan did not even try going against him, but he was clearly going to fall victim to the crazy machinations even if he became the ruler. Wan is another character I feel incredibly sorry for. He is a somewhat weak man, but he is a nice enough person, who would have had a normal and happy life elsewhere. When he stabs himself in the Empress’ chambers, I think even though he survives, he is really dead from then on. His head has been screwed up 17 different ways. First, by the affair with his stepmother, where his guilt about cuckolding his father (of whom he is afraid but there is also real attachment there) is mixed with the fact that she is his step mom, and so the relationship is quasi-incestual and very unhealthy and because of everything is almost quasi abusive on her part because she is the older, and from their personalities, she initiated it, and he knew her when he was a child, when she was ‘quasi Mom’ and etc etc etc. And they are both still trapped in it, because he has a strong emotional connection to her, part filial, part chemistry, and it’s all utterly suffocating. I think it’s pretty significant that he attempts to kill himself after the Empress tells him she wants him dead. The guy needs YEARS of therapy. But sadly, his attempts to find normalcy are even more doomed: his romance with the Royal Physician’s daughter (which in another movie would be this grand, romantic affair a la House of Flying Daggers but here is just a little bit of attempted normalcy in a madhouse) where she is a strong yet startlingly normal young woman, and they are cute and young together, is literally cursed by the palace’s secrets as she turns out to be his half-sister. The one normal thing is his life is actually the most twisted of all. I think the symbol of how twisted everything and everyone in that family is, is when the lovers find out, the girl literally runs out screaming out of the palace and gets killed in her dash, but Wan’s only reaction is the bitter and despairing question to the Empress ‘Why did you have to tell us?’
And then there is Jai. *swoon* The middle son, the capable one, the least damaged one, the strongest (also the hottest, but that is by the by). I think it’s not just his innate strength of character that enabled him to be the least damaged, but it’s also the fact that unlike the other two sons, he got the chance to command on the frontier for years, to be away from the claustrophobia of the palace (the palace is beautiful but very closed off, screens, pillars, walls. Very symbolic. And it’s a giant machine, capable of efficiently swallowing everything, dehumanizing everything: notice all those workers in unison. Even the Emperor can be swept away, eventually). Of all the sons, he has the best chance to overthrow his father, but in the final analysis, capable as he is, he doesn’t have the resources and, most importantly, the sheer ruthless evil to compensate for lack of resources and come out on top. He is not evil enough to be the Emperor’s heir.
He has weaknesses: he has honor and he loves his mother. His feelings are his downfall. Think about that scene at the end. He is the only imperial son left. He has failed in rebellion to save his mother, he is before his father, still in that bloody armor. But the thing is, he still has his pride, and his integrity and he tells his father he can kill him, but he will still say that he rebelled to save his mother (who has been slowly driven mad, by the poison administered in her medicine every two hours but has no way out to make them stop) and not for the throne. And the Emperor tells him that the punishment for rebellion is being torn apart by horses, but he will forgive him, and make him his heir (as he was planning to, anyway) if, from now on, he will be the one to give his mother the medicine, every day, every two hours.
God.
My God.
Because that is the most perfect, precise thing the Emperor could come up with, to punish Jai and to torture him, but also to make him his own. He wants to level the playing field, make him a fellow monster. If Jai did it, if he agreed, there would be nothing left of his soul but self-hate. He would have nothing left, he would be the Emperor’s plaything.
It would destroy him more than anything else.
But paradoxically, it is also a test to make Jai ready to be the Emperor, because the current Emperor believes you need to be this ruthless, this inhuman, in order to be able to rule. Do you think the Emperor would hesitate, if he was in Jai’s place? Are you kidding? He’d serve the poison 17 times over to get the throne and dance on the remains. The scariest thing about the Emperor is he has feelings, but he does not allow them to interfere with what he wants: he clearly was fond of his first wife, but he first jailed her and when he finds out she is alive has her killed. Etc.
But Jai cannot do that (and I love that his mother was willing him to agree. She had no way out now, anyway. But it wasn’t about saving her any more. It was about damning his own soul and that even if she was doomed, he could not profit by her death, he could not go along with it). That scene, where he kneels to his mother, and for a moment I am reminded of the scene earlier where the Emperor made the oldest and the youngest sons kneel to persuade her to take her medicine but Jai kneeled to his father instead to ask him that if she didn’t want it, she shouldn’t take it, and that was before anyone knew of the poison. And for a moment I am horrified that he will agree, that he will ask her to take the medicine and my heart is in my throat. But instead, he quietly says ‘Mother, your son has failed you. Forgive me’ and, lighting-quick, he grabs a sword from one of the guards and kills himself (interestingly, he is the capable one, he is dead in an instant, unlike Wan, the ineffective one, who couldn’t kill himself properly).
And you know, scarily enough, that is the best choice left to him. I am reminded of the Roman writers and their view on suicide being the only morally acceptable choice to a good person in a world gone mad.
And the Empress is destroyed. She throws down that cup and it’s…full of acid. I think it’s symbolic, but also it’s because the Emperor was going to get rid of her, once and for all, quickly. He didn’t care if Jai was going to serve the medicine or not, all he wanted was the agreement to do so, because with that, Jai’s soul would be effectively his, he would be destroyed, whether than he had to carry it out or not.
Checkmate.
The Emperor wins. If his wife won’t kill herself now, she will slowly die from the poison they give her. And by having her beloved son dead, he took her one joy away from her (he would have been taken away if he agreed to poison her, just as effectively). And you know, he will marry again, and have children, and the circle will start again. And you know what’s the scariest thing? The best person left to rule: the most capable, the most ruthless.
The Empress is the only one who could have matched him (she started planning for rebellion before the poison: it takes a while to get 10000 scarves ready) but it’s not just her lack of resources compared to his. Just like the children, she is not monster enough, however ruthless she may be. But he? He is.
Those final scenes, with the efficient machinery cleaning up the blood, putting back the flowers, so there is no sign of anything, and the Emperor calmly eating even though his family is dead, not even pausing is…Oh my God. I am sure he will sleep quite well tonight.
Also, the battle scenes were amazing, especially the one where Jai is fighting, in desperation, the ring of the guards, and he is the only one left alive and he keeps going. That one reminded me of the final fight of Sad Eyes against the police officers in The Duelist.
P.S. I cannot believe I didn't discuss the Empress. Btw, I don't truly blame her for her affair with Wan. She is trapped in this marriage, with this person, and it's her attempt for some emotional connection, for some control. Very unhealthy but not unexpected. It's also interesting to contrast maternal love she has for Jai and maternal-incestuous-something else love she has for Wan.
smartylibrarian last night. TCotGF deals with the Imperial Family in the 10th Century as they prepare for the Chrysanthemum Festival: all the intrigues, dysfunction, and plotting that surround them, and the wreck they leave in their wake. The acting is all around excellent, with Chow Yun-Fat especially mesmerizing as the Emperor, who scared me even though he was only on celluloid, and the gorgeous Gong Li as his mad, equally scary wife. Jay Chou’s Jai, the middle of the three Imperial princes, was my favorite character though, and the bond between him and his mother was my favorite relationship in the movie.
I am not going to post pics (because
miss_dian has already done an amazing picspam here) but I do want to blab about it. It’s going to be behind the cut, as the labyrinthine plot is too good to spoil, so all I will say outside the cut is: if you like complicated family dramas, or period movies, or gorgeous art design, and don’t mind tragedy, go run to the nearest theater.
You know, I think my jaw might literally have been hanging open by the end of this amazing movie, more like a Wagnerian Opera than anything film-like.
The thought that kept echoing in my head at the end was ‘The monster won.’
It really was.
Because the Emperor won at the end, and I couldn’t believe it, and it was inevitable. If you think about it, in a grim struggle like this: in imperial politics, in struggle for control, of course the evilest one would win.
He would win because he was the cleverest, because he had no weaknesses. None of his sons could have bested him. The youngest one was not very capable (his coup attempt was beyond pathetic), but even twisted as he was, killing his oldest brother, he was still not ruthless enough. If you notice, he wanted his father to abdicate, he didn’t try to kill him. But the Emperor had no such scruples.
In a way, the youngest son, loathsome as he was, was yet another victim of the hot-house, messed up palace life. If he was a modern teenager, he’d dye his hair four different colors and graffiti the walls. Not this. This was his reaction to lack of parental attention. Because his father was all about the Crown Prince Wan (the one chink in the Emperor’s armor was his oldest son: look at his grief when he dies, look at his tenderness with him, look at him forgiving him for the affair with the Empress, his stepmother. Anyone else would have been dead. I wonder if it’s a reflection of his feelings towards his first wife, but about her more later). The father respected Jai for his ability but I did not get any love there, at all. And for the Empress, she was all about Jai, their emotional bond incredibly strong. Neither of the royal parents noticed the youngest son. Ironically, even in his rebellion and death he was outshone by his older brothers. Even though the Emperor killed him, himself (in a horrifying scene, with that heavy jeweled belt), he dropped him like he didn’t exist in order to hold Wan in his arms. And during that whole scene, the Empress was more occupied by Wan dying (on their relationship more below) and the fact that her beloved Jai is about to attack than the fate of her youngest (also contrast Jai’s competent, planned rebellion with the youngest’s aborted one. What would he do even if Daddy Dearest abdicated. He’d still have Jai with his 10,000 there).
But to get back as to why the Emperor won. Wan did not even try going against him, but he was clearly going to fall victim to the crazy machinations even if he became the ruler. Wan is another character I feel incredibly sorry for. He is a somewhat weak man, but he is a nice enough person, who would have had a normal and happy life elsewhere. When he stabs himself in the Empress’ chambers, I think even though he survives, he is really dead from then on. His head has been screwed up 17 different ways. First, by the affair with his stepmother, where his guilt about cuckolding his father (of whom he is afraid but there is also real attachment there) is mixed with the fact that she is his step mom, and so the relationship is quasi-incestual and very unhealthy and because of everything is almost quasi abusive on her part because she is the older, and from their personalities, she initiated it, and he knew her when he was a child, when she was ‘quasi Mom’ and etc etc etc. And they are both still trapped in it, because he has a strong emotional connection to her, part filial, part chemistry, and it’s all utterly suffocating. I think it’s pretty significant that he attempts to kill himself after the Empress tells him she wants him dead. The guy needs YEARS of therapy. But sadly, his attempts to find normalcy are even more doomed: his romance with the Royal Physician’s daughter (which in another movie would be this grand, romantic affair a la House of Flying Daggers but here is just a little bit of attempted normalcy in a madhouse) where she is a strong yet startlingly normal young woman, and they are cute and young together, is literally cursed by the palace’s secrets as she turns out to be his half-sister. The one normal thing is his life is actually the most twisted of all. I think the symbol of how twisted everything and everyone in that family is, is when the lovers find out, the girl literally runs out screaming out of the palace and gets killed in her dash, but Wan’s only reaction is the bitter and despairing question to the Empress ‘Why did you have to tell us?’
And then there is Jai. *swoon* The middle son, the capable one, the least damaged one, the strongest (also the hottest, but that is by the by). I think it’s not just his innate strength of character that enabled him to be the least damaged, but it’s also the fact that unlike the other two sons, he got the chance to command on the frontier for years, to be away from the claustrophobia of the palace (the palace is beautiful but very closed off, screens, pillars, walls. Very symbolic. And it’s a giant machine, capable of efficiently swallowing everything, dehumanizing everything: notice all those workers in unison. Even the Emperor can be swept away, eventually). Of all the sons, he has the best chance to overthrow his father, but in the final analysis, capable as he is, he doesn’t have the resources and, most importantly, the sheer ruthless evil to compensate for lack of resources and come out on top. He is not evil enough to be the Emperor’s heir.
He has weaknesses: he has honor and he loves his mother. His feelings are his downfall. Think about that scene at the end. He is the only imperial son left. He has failed in rebellion to save his mother, he is before his father, still in that bloody armor. But the thing is, he still has his pride, and his integrity and he tells his father he can kill him, but he will still say that he rebelled to save his mother (who has been slowly driven mad, by the poison administered in her medicine every two hours but has no way out to make them stop) and not for the throne. And the Emperor tells him that the punishment for rebellion is being torn apart by horses, but he will forgive him, and make him his heir (as he was planning to, anyway) if, from now on, he will be the one to give his mother the medicine, every day, every two hours.
God.
My God.
Because that is the most perfect, precise thing the Emperor could come up with, to punish Jai and to torture him, but also to make him his own. He wants to level the playing field, make him a fellow monster. If Jai did it, if he agreed, there would be nothing left of his soul but self-hate. He would have nothing left, he would be the Emperor’s plaything.
It would destroy him more than anything else.
But paradoxically, it is also a test to make Jai ready to be the Emperor, because the current Emperor believes you need to be this ruthless, this inhuman, in order to be able to rule. Do you think the Emperor would hesitate, if he was in Jai’s place? Are you kidding? He’d serve the poison 17 times over to get the throne and dance on the remains. The scariest thing about the Emperor is he has feelings, but he does not allow them to interfere with what he wants: he clearly was fond of his first wife, but he first jailed her and when he finds out she is alive has her killed. Etc.
But Jai cannot do that (and I love that his mother was willing him to agree. She had no way out now, anyway. But it wasn’t about saving her any more. It was about damning his own soul and that even if she was doomed, he could not profit by her death, he could not go along with it). That scene, where he kneels to his mother, and for a moment I am reminded of the scene earlier where the Emperor made the oldest and the youngest sons kneel to persuade her to take her medicine but Jai kneeled to his father instead to ask him that if she didn’t want it, she shouldn’t take it, and that was before anyone knew of the poison. And for a moment I am horrified that he will agree, that he will ask her to take the medicine and my heart is in my throat. But instead, he quietly says ‘Mother, your son has failed you. Forgive me’ and, lighting-quick, he grabs a sword from one of the guards and kills himself (interestingly, he is the capable one, he is dead in an instant, unlike Wan, the ineffective one, who couldn’t kill himself properly).
And you know, scarily enough, that is the best choice left to him. I am reminded of the Roman writers and their view on suicide being the only morally acceptable choice to a good person in a world gone mad.
And the Empress is destroyed. She throws down that cup and it’s…full of acid. I think it’s symbolic, but also it’s because the Emperor was going to get rid of her, once and for all, quickly. He didn’t care if Jai was going to serve the medicine or not, all he wanted was the agreement to do so, because with that, Jai’s soul would be effectively his, he would be destroyed, whether than he had to carry it out or not.
Checkmate.
The Emperor wins. If his wife won’t kill herself now, she will slowly die from the poison they give her. And by having her beloved son dead, he took her one joy away from her (he would have been taken away if he agreed to poison her, just as effectively). And you know, he will marry again, and have children, and the circle will start again. And you know what’s the scariest thing? The best person left to rule: the most capable, the most ruthless.
The Empress is the only one who could have matched him (she started planning for rebellion before the poison: it takes a while to get 10000 scarves ready) but it’s not just her lack of resources compared to his. Just like the children, she is not monster enough, however ruthless she may be. But he? He is.
Those final scenes, with the efficient machinery cleaning up the blood, putting back the flowers, so there is no sign of anything, and the Emperor calmly eating even though his family is dead, not even pausing is…Oh my God. I am sure he will sleep quite well tonight.
Also, the battle scenes were amazing, especially the one where Jai is fighting, in desperation, the ring of the guards, and he is the only one left alive and he keeps going. That one reminded me of the final fight of Sad Eyes against the police officers in The Duelist.
P.S. I cannot believe I didn't discuss the Empress. Btw, I don't truly blame her for her affair with Wan. She is trapped in this marriage, with this person, and it's her attempt for some emotional connection, for some control. Very unhealthy but not unexpected. It's also interesting to contrast maternal love she has for Jai and maternal-incestuous-something else love she has for Wan.
