Curse of the Golden Flower

Cast:
• Chow Yun-Fat - Emperor Ping
• Gong Li - Empress Liang
• Liu Ye - Crown Prince Wan
• Jay Chou - Prince Jai
• Qin Junjie - Prince Yu
• Ni Dahong - The Imperial Doctor
• Chen Jin - Wife of the doctor
• Li Man - Jiang Chan (daughter of the doctor)

Plot:

(English)

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play Thunderstorm (雷雨pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the imperial court of the Later Tang Dynasty, which was during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. Emperor Ping is a man of humble origins and strong ambition, having risen to the throne from the lowly rank of captain. He abandoned his first wife to marry the Princess of Liang, who is now his Empress Phoenix. The Emperor does not love his second wife or her often sour mood; he blames the latter on an illness, for which he has forced her to take medicine of his own concoction every two hours for the past ten years. Empress Phoenix has been outwardly obedient throughout the marriage and her husband's treatment, but has grown suspicious of the medicine in the recent span of ten days. Her submissiveness also conceals the fact that she and Crown Prince Wan, the Emperor's son from his previous wife, have engaged in an illicit affair for three years. The status quo is broken, however, when Wan reveals to the Empress his guilt about the affair and then ends it against her wishes. Part of his motivation is a second secret relationship, held with Jiang Chan the daughter of the Imperial Doctor. Wan's overriding desire is to escape the palace, which he has never left, and thereby see the outside world with Chan.
Prince Jai, the middle son and eldest son of the Empress, has been leading the Emperor Ping's army at the kingdom's borders for three years. The palace has prepared a massive welcoming ceremony for the returning prince on the eve of the Chrysanthemum Festival, but the Emperor cancels them at the last moment to meet his son at a nearby inn where Jai has been instructed to wait. There, the Emperor duels his son as an act of dominance, after which he warns Jai never to repeat a previous, unspecified mistake, emphasizing that everything Jai receives comes by the will of the Emperor and attempting to take anything from the Emperor by force is doomed to failure. Jai then returns to the palace and visits with his mother, who is feverishly embroidering chrysanthemums for the upcoming festival. While she is embroidering she is struck still for a moment, possibly in pain, and collapses. She recovers quickly but Jai begins to worry about her.
Meanwhile, the Emperor meets with the Imperial Doctor, who confirms that he (the Doctor) has been serving the Empress a special poison along with her medicine for the last ten days. The poisoning is apparently a scheme of the Emperor, intended for unspecified reasons to cause the Empress to lose her mind within two months. Not coincidentally, the Empress is increasingly more suspicious of the medicine due to the change in its taste and the recent onset of pain. Because of this, she chooses to leave the last swallow of her next dose. At a family gathering later that day, the Emperor indicates that he knows of her disobedience, and then insists that she finish the remaining medicine. The Empress refuses until the Emperor coerces his sons into begging her to comply.
Later on, a woman in assassin's garb informs the Empress that the medicine does in fact contain poison, as she had come to suspect. The woman refuses payment, saying she has her own reasons to hate the Emperor. Then she begins to leave, but becomes distracted by Wan, who has her seized and brought to the Emperor. The Emperor recognizes her as his first wife, the mother of Wan, who without his knowledge had escaped imprisonment and execution twenty-five years earlier. She is now the wife of the Imperial Doctor and the mother of Chan, who does not know of her mother's past. The Emperor promises to repay her for the wrongs he has done to her and promotes her husband (the Doctor) to governor of another city.
After the Doctor leaves with his family the Empress and Jai meet and she tells him she is being poisoned and asks for his help against his father. He first refuses, then submits when he watches his mother willingly drink the poisoned medicine. Later the Empress summons Wan to her chambers and shows him a robe she has made for him to wear at the festival, emphasizing the special chrysanthemum she has embroidered on it. Wan becomes suspicious and refuses to wear the robe, they scuffle over it until they end up on the floor together in an almost intimate moment. Seconds later Wan snaps out of it and rushes from the room, riding from the palace to the inn where the Doctor and his family are staying. When he is at the inn with Chan, Wan discovers that the Empress has had her eunuch embroider and deliver ten thousand chrysanthemum scarves to General Wu of their own army. Wan immediately gets suspicious and rushes to return to the palace, causing himself to be discovered by Chan's mother, who demands vehemently and without explanation that Wan leave immediately, which he does without a word. The Doctor then sits down for a heart-to-heart talk with his wife and Chan takes the opportunity to pursue Prince Wan, whom she believes is riding into great danger.
Wan returns to the palace and confronts the Empress. She is hurt and jealous of his relationship with Chan, plus his refusal to wear the robe she made for him, so when he becomes angry and says that her plot would cause him to be killed, she agrees, telling him she wants him to die. At that Wan grabs a knife and stabs himself, but not fatally. Later, when he is recovering, the Emperor visits him and tells him he has known for quite some time about the relationship between Wan and the Empress. The Emperor then tells Wan he does not blame him for the betrayal, whereupon Wan divulges the Empress' plot.
Meanwhile, before the heart-to-heart talk can begin between the Doctor and his wife, the Emperor's black-clad assassins descend on the inn, armed with sickle-like swords and long ropes attached to grapples to slaughter all the occupants. They kill the Doctor, but red-clad soldiers loyal to the Empress hold them off and allow his wife to escape. She flees to the palace, where the Chrysanthemum Festival is about to begin, and in turn is revealed by the Empress to the royal family and Chan as the Emperor's first wife, Wan's mother. Chan is driven mad by the realization that her lover Wan is in fact her half-brother, and thus flees screaming into the courtyard with her mother in pursuit. The Emperor's assassins reappear and kill Chan and her mother, but at the same time are slain by the mother in mad grief. Then a large army of gold-armored soldiers swarms through the front gates, killing imperial bodyguards and courtiers as they approach; their scarves are soon shown to bear chrysanthemum emblems. With Jai emerging in his own golden armor to take point, the army advances toward the courtyard.
In the palace, all are surprised when Yu, the youngest prince, stabs Wan in the back. Yu screams that he has witnessed and is disgusted by the plottings of his family, and has concluded that he must take the throne. Backed by several soldiers, he orders his father to abdicate. However, the Emperor's assassins descend from the rafters to kill the soldiers, after which the Emperor uses his heavy golden belt to pulverize, and kill Yu.
Outside, Jai leads the golden soldiers into the courtyard, cutting down the imperial flag (put up by the Emperor to serve as a warning to his son not to forcefully take what he wants, as warned in the inn from before) as a symbol to go forward. As the golden soldiers trample the chrysanthemum pots in the courtyard, an even larger army clad in silver appears and fortifies the palace with spears, bows, and a massive mobile wall. They slaughter all 10,000 golden soldiers, but are ordered to spare Jai. He fights a determined, solitary battle against the entire army for some time before the teary-eyed Empress nods to him and he submits. Afterwards, a horde of servants clears away the bodies and restores the decorations, including the thousands of pots of chrysanthemums, with mechanical precision. The festival begins as if nothing had happened.
The Empress and a blood-soaked Jai are brought to the festival table where the Emperor sits. The Emperor reveals that he knew of the plot against him, since Wan had informed him of it; assuming that the coup was a bid for the throne, the Emperor reminds Jai of his previous warning to not take what has not been given to him. With that in mind, he also reveals an earlier decision to replace Wan with Jai as Crown Prince, thereby emphasizing the superfluous nature of Jai's act. Jai admits that he knew that his fight was futile, but corrects the Emperor's assumption by stating that he did it all for his mother, not the throne. In response, the Emperor says that he will spare Jai the penalty for princely rebellion of being ripped apart by five horses if he will personally serve his mother her poisoned medicine from now on. Jai kneels before his mother and apologizes, then kills himself with a sword. Blood splatters the contents of the table as the Emperor bends to take a morsel of food. He pauses without expression. The Empress, truly driven mad now, screams as she flings the medicine into the center of the table. The poisonous contents of the cup turns the giant golden chrysanthemum on the table black as the movie ends.
This last image is a symbol for the main metaphor of the film: Golden and beautiful on the outside, rot and decay on the inside.

(German)

Nachdem der chinesische Kaiser im 10. Jahrhundert z. Z. der Späten Tang-Dynastie erfahren musste, dass seine Gattin eine Affäre mit seinem Sohn aus erster Ehe, dem Kronprinzen Wan, begonnen hat, trifft der verbitterte Herrscher Vorbereitungen, die Königin mit Hilfe eines schwarzen Pilzes in ihrer Medizin langsam zu vergiften. Doch diese kommt ihrem verhassten Gatten auf die Schliche und hat keinesfalls vor, ihrem Tod untätig ins Auge zu sehen. Sie selbst schmiedet einen ebenso bitteren Plan.
Am Tag des Chrysanthemenfestes, wenn die Palastwache sich zum Festessen zurückzieht, soll ihr gerade von seiner Militärausbildung zurückgekehrter Sohn Prinz Jai mit ihrer Unterstützung einen Putschversuch wagen und den Kaiser so zum Abdanken zwingen. Doch dies sind nicht die einzigen Begehrlichkeiten, die sich über die Jahre am Hofe aufgestaut haben, nicht die einzigen verbotenen Liebschaften, die nun verbitterte Todeswünsche nach sich ziehen. Während des blutigen Putschversuches müssen mehr königliche Familienmitglieder ihr Leben lassen, als man hinter den vergifteten Mauern des Palastes zu vermuten mag.

Curse of the Golden Flower

Cast:
• Chow Yun-Fat - Emperor Ping
• Gong Li - Empress Liang
• Liu Ye - Crown Prince Wan
• Jay Chou - Prince Jai
• Qin Junjie - Prince Yu
• Ni Dahong - The Imperial Doctor
• Chen Jin - Wife of the doctor
• Li Man - Jiang Chan (daughter of the doctor)

Plot:

(English)

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play Thunderstorm (雷雨pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the imperial court of the Later Tang Dynasty, which was during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. Emperor Ping is a man of humble origins and strong ambition, having risen to the throne from the lowly rank of captain. He abandoned his first wife to marry the Princess of Liang, who is now his Empress Phoenix. The Emperor does not love his second wife or her often sour mood; he blames the latter on an illness, for which he has forced her to take medicine of his own concoction every two hours for the past ten years. Empress Phoenix has been outwardly obedient throughout the marriage and her husband's treatment, but has grown suspicious of the medicine in the recent span of ten days. Her submissiveness also conceals the fact that she and Crown Prince Wan, the Emperor's son from his previous wife, have engaged in an illicit affair for three years. The status quo is broken, however, when Wan reveals to the Empress his guilt about the affair and then ends it against her wishes. Part of his motivation is a second secret relationship, held with Jiang Chan the daughter of the Imperial Doctor. Wan's overriding desire is to escape the palace, which he has never left, and thereby see the outside world with Chan.
Prince Jai, the middle son and eldest son of the Empress, has been leading the Emperor Ping's army at the kingdom's borders for three years. The palace has prepared a massive welcoming ceremony for the returning prince on the eve of the Chrysanthemum Festival, but the Emperor cancels them at the last moment to meet his son at a nearby inn where Jai has been instructed to wait. There, the Emperor duels his son as an act of dominance, after which he warns Jai never to repeat a previous, unspecified mistake, emphasizing that everything Jai receives comes by the will of the Emperor and attempting to take anything from the Emperor by force is doomed to failure. Jai then returns to the palace and visits with his mother, who is feverishly embroidering chrysanthemums for the upcoming festival. While she is embroidering she is struck still for a moment, possibly in pain, and collapses. She recovers quickly but Jai begins to worry about her.
Meanwhile, the Emperor meets with the Imperial Doctor, who confirms that he (the Doctor) has been serving the Empress a special poison along with her medicine for the last ten days. The poisoning is apparently a scheme of the Emperor, intended for unspecified reasons to cause the Empress to lose her mind within two months. Not coincidentally, the Empress is increasingly more suspicious of the medicine due to the change in its taste and the recent onset of pain. Because of this, she chooses to leave the last swallow of her next dose. At a family gathering later that day, the Emperor indicates that he knows of her disobedience, and then insists that she finish the remaining medicine. The Empress refuses until the Emperor coerces his sons into begging her to comply.
Later on, a woman in assassin's garb informs the Empress that the medicine does in fact contain poison, as she had come to suspect. The woman refuses payment, saying she has her own reasons to hate the Emperor. Then she begins to leave, but becomes distracted by Wan, who has her seized and brought to the Emperor. The Emperor recognizes her as his first wife, the mother of Wan, who without his knowledge had escaped imprisonment and execution twenty-five years earlier. She is now the wife of the Imperial Doctor and the mother of Chan, who does not know of her mother's past. The Emperor promises to repay her for the wrongs he has done to her and promotes her husband (the Doctor) to governor of another city.
After the Doctor leaves with his family the Empress and Jai meet and she tells him she is being poisoned and asks for his help against his father. He first refuses, then submits when he watches his mother willingly drink the poisoned medicine. Later the Empress summons Wan to her chambers and shows him a robe she has made for him to wear at the festival, emphasizing the special chrysanthemum she has embroidered on it. Wan becomes suspicious and refuses to wear the robe, they scuffle over it until they end up on the floor together in an almost intimate moment. Seconds later Wan snaps out of it and rushes from the room, riding from the palace to the inn where the Doctor and his family are staying. When he is at the inn with Chan, Wan discovers that the Empress has had her eunuch embroider and deliver ten thousand chrysanthemum scarves to General Wu of their own army. Wan immediately gets suspicious and rushes to return to the palace, causing himself to be discovered by Chan's mother, who demands vehemently and without explanation that Wan leave immediately, which he does without a word. The Doctor then sits down for a heart-to-heart talk with his wife and Chan takes the opportunity to pursue Prince Wan, whom she believes is riding into great danger.
Wan returns to the palace and confronts the Empress. She is hurt and jealous of his relationship with Chan, plus his refusal to wear the robe she made for him, so when he becomes angry and says that her plot would cause him to be killed, she agrees, telling him she wants him to die. At that Wan grabs a knife and stabs himself, but not fatally. Later, when he is recovering, the Emperor visits him and tells him he has known for quite some time about the relationship between Wan and the Empress. The Emperor then tells Wan he does not blame him for the betrayal, whereupon Wan divulges the Empress' plot.
Meanwhile, before the heart-to-heart talk can begin between the Doctor and his wife, the Emperor's black-clad assassins descend on the inn, armed with sickle-like swords and long ropes attached to grapples to slaughter all the occupants. They kill the Doctor, but red-clad soldiers loyal to the Empress hold them off and allow his wife to escape. She flees to the palace, where the Chrysanthemum Festival is about to begin, and in turn is revealed by the Empress to the royal family and Chan as the Emperor's first wife, Wan's mother. Chan is driven mad by the realization that her lover Wan is in fact her half-brother, and thus flees screaming into the courtyard with her mother in pursuit. The Emperor's assassins reappear and kill Chan and her mother, but at the same time are slain by the mother in mad grief. Then a large army of gold-armored soldiers swarms through the front gates, killing imperial bodyguards and courtiers as they approach; their scarves are soon shown to bear chrysanthemum emblems. With Jai emerging in his own golden armor to take point, the army advances toward the courtyard.
In the palace, all are surprised when Yu, the youngest prince, stabs Wan in the back. Yu screams that he has witnessed and is disgusted by the plottings of his family, and has concluded that he must take the throne. Backed by several soldiers, he orders his father to abdicate. However, the Emperor's assassins descend from the rafters to kill the soldiers, after which the Emperor uses his heavy golden belt to pulverize, and kill Yu.
Outside, Jai leads the golden soldiers into the courtyard, cutting down the imperial flag (put up by the Emperor to serve as a warning to his son not to forcefully take what he wants, as warned in the inn from before) as a symbol to go forward. As the golden soldiers trample the chrysanthemum pots in the courtyard, an even larger army clad in silver appears and fortifies the palace with spears, bows, and a massive mobile wall. They slaughter all 10,000 golden soldiers, but are ordered to spare Jai. He fights a determined, solitary battle against the entire army for some time before the teary-eyed Empress nods to him and he submits. Afterwards, a horde of servants clears away the bodies and restores the decorations, including the thousands of pots of chrysanthemums, with mechanical precision. The festival begins as if nothing had happened.
The Empress and a blood-soaked Jai are brought to the festival table where the Emperor sits. The Emperor reveals that he knew of the plot against him, since Wan had informed him of it; assuming that the coup was a bid for the throne, the Emperor reminds Jai of his previous warning to not take what has not been given to him. With that in mind, he also reveals an earlier decision to replace Wan with Jai as Crown Prince, thereby emphasizing the superfluous nature of Jai's act. Jai admits that he knew that his fight was futile, but corrects the Emperor's assumption by stating that he did it all for his mother, not the throne. In response, the Emperor says that he will spare Jai the penalty for princely rebellion of being ripped apart by five horses if he will personally serve his mother her poisoned medicine from now on. Jai kneels before his mother and apologizes, then kills himself with a sword. Blood splatters the contents of the table as the Emperor bends to take a morsel of food. He pauses without expression. The Empress, truly driven mad now, screams as she flings the medicine into the center of the table. The poisonous contents of the cup turns the giant golden chrysanthemum on the table black as the movie ends.
This last image is a symbol for the main metaphor of the film: Golden and beautiful on the outside, rot and decay on the inside.

(German)

Nachdem der chinesische Kaiser im 10. Jahrhundert z. Z. der Späten Tang-Dynastie erfahren musste, dass seine Gattin eine Affäre mit seinem Sohn aus erster Ehe, dem Kronprinzen Wan, begonnen hat, trifft der verbitterte Herrscher Vorbereitungen, die Königin mit Hilfe eines schwarzen Pilzes in ihrer Medizin langsam zu vergiften. Doch diese kommt ihrem verhassten Gatten auf die Schliche und hat keinesfalls vor, ihrem Tod untätig ins Auge zu sehen. Sie selbst schmiedet einen ebenso bitteren Plan.
Am Tag des Chrysanthemenfestes, wenn die Palastwache sich zum Festessen zurückzieht, soll ihr gerade von seiner Militärausbildung zurückgekehrter Sohn Prinz Jai mit ihrer Unterstützung einen Putschversuch wagen und den Kaiser so zum Abdanken zwingen. Doch dies sind nicht die einzigen Begehrlichkeiten, die sich über die Jahre am Hofe aufgestaut haben, nicht die einzigen verbotenen Liebschaften, die nun verbitterte Todeswünsche nach sich ziehen. Während des blutigen Putschversuches müssen mehr königliche Familienmitglieder ihr Leben lassen, als man hinter den vergifteten Mauern des Palastes zu vermuten mag.