The coming attractions shown endlessly before any movie can be annoying or can make you want to see the movie. Seeing the coming attractions for "Curse.." made me HAVE TO see the movie. I did not hesitate when the showing was perfectly timed for me this past Saturday afternoon.
The first thing that caught my eye, naturally, was the set design. Beautiful to look at. Then there was something about the way Gong Li was just walking through those beautiful sets that made me have to see what she was all about. She appeared to be a woman possessed, obsessed and on a mission. She really did give off that much in a five second clip.
And she does not disappoint! I had never seen her before, but I am now a fan. She owns the screen. As the Empress, she is also beautiful to look at but she is much more than that, too. She's intelligent, she knows what she wants..she's also fed up, because eventually she realizes that her life is out of her hands, and that her husband is trying to get rid of her, inexplicably, and she's none too thrilled with the idea of anyone getting in her way. She's also having an affair with her stepson that is not going as well as she might have hoped. This is probably understandable because, well..LOOK AT HER! He's getting rid of her by spiking the medicine she has to take, and it makes her light-headed and sweaty and who wants that? Since its HIS idea, she has nothing to say in the matter, and that's why, in part at least, why she's fed up. But you know what they say about a woman scorned..she's not having any of it, and good for her.
The movie is kind of "The Lion in Winter"-ish, but prettier. Some of the acting is laughably over the top but that didn't bother me all that much. Chow is very good, too, but for me this one is all about the lady. Oh, and there are action sequences toward the end, when the inevitable pooh hits the fan, and they are very good for those in the audience who like that kind of thing, but anything that took my eyes off the Empress was a distraction, truth be told. It is not a great movie and I did not experience that I-just-saw-a-great-movie feeling that all true fans of cinema hope for once they hit the street, but as I've gone on about ad nauseum, I have to give it up for Gong Li, a true screen goddess who owns every single frame of film I had the honor of seeing. 8/10.
The first thing that caught my eye, naturally, was the set design. Beautiful to look at. Then there was something about the way Gong Li was just walking through those beautiful sets that made me have to see what she was all about. She appeared to be a woman possessed, obsessed and on a mission. She really did give off that much in a five second clip.
And she does not disappoint! I had never seen her before, but I am now a fan. She owns the screen. As the Empress, she is also beautiful to look at but she is much more than that, too. She's intelligent, she knows what she wants..she's also fed up, because eventually she realizes that her life is out of her hands, and that her husband is trying to get rid of her, inexplicably, and she's none too thrilled with the idea of anyone getting in her way. She's also having an affair with her stepson that is not going as well as she might have hoped. This is probably understandable because, well..LOOK AT HER! He's getting rid of her by spiking the medicine she has to take, and it makes her light-headed and sweaty and who wants that? Since its HIS idea, she has nothing to say in the matter, and that's why, in part at least, why she's fed up. But you know what they say about a woman scorned..she's not having any of it, and good for her.
The movie is kind of "The Lion in Winter"-ish, but prettier. Some of the acting is laughably over the top but that didn't bother me all that much. Chow is very good, too, but for me this one is all about the lady. Oh, and there are action sequences toward the end, when the inevitable pooh hits the fan, and they are very good for those in the audience who like that kind of thing, but anything that took my eyes off the Empress was a distraction, truth be told. It is not a great movie and I did not experience that I-just-saw-a-great-movie feeling that all true fans of cinema hope for once they hit the street, but as I've gone on about ad nauseum, I have to give it up for Gong Li, a true screen goddess who owns every single frame of film I had the honor of seeing. 8/10.