by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A- Rated R 114 min
This epic Chinese film, written and directed by Zhang Imou (House of Flying Daggers) is set in 928 AD during the Tang dynasty. The scenario seethes with palace intrigue worthy of Hamlet, as the Emperor (Chow Yun-fat) returns from battle to his palace with his second son Prince Jai (Jay Chou) just prior to the Chrysanthemum festival.
While the Emperor was away, the Empress (Gong Li ) had been having a torrid affair with his son from another marriage, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye). Wan, feeling trapped and guilty about the illicit affair, dreams of leaving the palace with his secret love Chan (LiMan) the Imperial Doctor’s daughter. Oh yeah, the palace is rife with juicy scandal, which, when the excrement hits the fan, will leave most major characters dead.
Suspecting his wife’s infidelity, the Emperor starts adding a brain eroding fungus into the Empress’ medicine that will eventually cause her to go insane. Meanwhile, the biological mother of Crown Prince Wan, now the Imperial Doctor’s wife, discovers the Emperor’s poison plot and tells the Empress, who sets in motion a complex plan to stage a coup d’etat with Prince Wan leading the insurrection.
Yes, this dysfunctional royal family makes the present day British royals look like well adjusted folks by comparison, as the intrigue reaches a fever-pitch, with double crosses and triple crosses. The Emperor is not sitting idly by on his steam bath throne while his family plots to overthrow his reign. He sets in motion his own surreptitious plan to counter the Empress’ treachery. In contrast, to hide her knowledge of the poison plot, she continues to take the noxious mixture, betting that she will get her revenge before she loses her mind. That is, if she doesn’t lose her head before that.
Wan is worried about the Empress, who seems to be obsessed with launching her master plan during the Chrysanthemum Festival, when the entire courtyard of the palace is filled with pots of the flower, which in later scenes becomes a twisted juxtaposition of beauty and gruesome battle as the forces of the Emperor’s offspring meet his loyal army in the mother of all showdowns.
Zhang’s magnificently colorful pageantry with the 10th Century Chinese palace protocol and lavish costumes create a stunning mosaic for this Shakespearian family betrayal and bloodletting. Just getting dressed in the morning required military-like discipline as the dressing routines were carefully staged to make maximum use of time and space. The Tang dynasty was a closed secret society to which the common people of the country were not privy.
The palace machinations were Machiavellian in scope and involved spies and double agents. Betrayal was punishable by a slow painful death after weeks of torture. Yet, at any one time, there were more plots floating around the palace than concubines, who numbered in the hundreds–all available to the emperor. Yes, in this society, it was good to be the Emperor who had risen to god-like status in the eyes of his subjects.
Because of the repressed emotional and sexual tensions inside the palace, the atmosphere was like a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment, as the various opposing forces intersected like protons colliding in a cyclatron, creating subatomic particles. Eventually, the Emperor found out about all the plots against him and used the knowledge to plot his counter-measures. Heck, the palace was like the CIA during the Cold War, teeming with special agents.
Although it was good to be the Emperor, he couldn’t relax with all the dangerous intrigue swirling around him. He couldn’t trust anyone, which made it difficult to rule. Of course, the momentum gradually builds up for the spectacular battle scenes. Suddenly, Ninjas drop from the rafters and kill large numbers of palace guards, as a prelude to the final bloody smackdown. The Empress had set in motion her destiny with her coup d’etat, already mired in tragedy as the Emperor was ready for her, since his spies had learned every detail of her operation.
Reading subtitles may not be the average moviegoer’s idea of fun, but in this case, it’s well worth the effort. This is a mind-blowing classical Chinese film that takes the viewer back to a historic time in China. Although this film is set in ancient history, it reaffirms human nature as a never changing study in greed, envy, naked ambition, violence, sexual obsession, and humankind’s propensity to wage war.
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