Curse of the Golden Flower

Director: Zhang Yimou
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 0.5

Excessive plotting and a beginning and middle that creep instead of leap debilitate this Zhang Yimou effort, whose last work that managed to excite me was Shanghai Triad back in 1995. Chow Yun-Fat wears a beard, Gong Li acts like a bitch (for Gong Li, this is expected) and naturally the whole thing is a metaphor for the state of China. Doesn't really get into the Hero-type battling until the very end, but by that point I was already filing this in the "I Could Care Less" category. The CGI is terrible, but at least the wallpaper looks nice.