by MALCOLM FRASER

After a sojourn into contemporary fare with 2005’s Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, Zhang Yimou returns to his specialty, the historical epic, with Curse of the Golden Flower. Fans of Hero and House of Flying Daggers will be sated with this outing’s spectacular visuals and large-scale battle scenes, but this time around, the action is in moderate doses. For the most part, it’s a family drama on an operatic scale, focusing on a 10th-century imperial family with more dysfunction than a busload of Dr. Phil guests.

The Empress (Gong Li) is getting over an affair with her son, Prince Wan (Liu Ye), which he’s broken off in terror of the impending return from battle of the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat). She’s also starting to suffer severe panic attacks, which may be due to the fact that her husband has instructed the Imperial Doctor (Ni Dahong) to poison her, lacing her daily herbal beverage with a mushroom designed to make her go slowly insane. The Emperor has to choose between Wan and his second son, Prince Jai (Canto-pop star Jay Chou) as his successor. Meanwhile, Wan has hooked up with the doctor’s daughter Chan (Li Man), whose mother (Chen Jin) also has scores to settle with the Imperial family. It all gets more complicated from there in a series of Greek-tragedy-worthy twists and betrayals.

The most notable aspect of the film is the visuals, a Yimou staple that’s played to the hilt here. Almost every shot in the film is a dizzying spectacle of bright colours in ornate patterns that adorn the production design and the costumes; the family’s golden robes alone are worth staring at for a couple of hours. Both Gong Li and Li Man are elevated to screen goddesses, the over-the-top costumes fetishizing their faces and gravity-defying bosoms (between this and Volver, it’s been a banner season for mammary enthusiasts). Numerous battles and ceremonial rituals are played out with seemingly thousands of extras, adding to the sense of overwhelming visual power.

The drama itself is played in pretty broad strokes: if you’re looking for subtlety or understatement, this is the wrong film. But as far as eye-candy cinema, it doesn’t get much better.

Curse of the Golden Flower opens this Friday, Jan. 12

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