Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) Zhang Yimou
Curse of the Golden Flower is a film set in 10th century China. It's based around a Chinese family who are losing strength because of a power struggle between the Emperor, Empress and their three sons. The Emperor's marriage to his wife is falling apart and the film is based around that and their fight for the higher power.
The majority of the film is set in a palace of mostly red and gold colours. These are both quite luxury colours and they symbolise the wealthiness and power of the characters. RED portrays good fortune and righteousness in traditional Chinese colour theory, whereas GOLD represents good luck, good fortune and deities. However, the setting of this film bears the opposite effects of good fortune, luck and happiness. The appearance of the people and surroundings in Curse of the Golden Flower are beautiful, but the characters are twisted and their personalities are evil.
Emperor Ping is a key character in the film and his styling is that of great detail. In this still taken from the film, the Emperor is shown to be wearing a gold body armour. This represents that the armour is acting as a protective barrier for his emotional being, through the fight for power with the Empress, as well as a barrier for his physical being. The armour being golden also reinforces that the Emperor is a very important, wealthy man of a high importance. Emperor Ping also has very straight eyebrows that appear out from his helmet in a slight downwards diagonal towards his nose. This gives the impression that he is a stern man that can be really evil.
During the film the Emperor disguises poison as medicine and feeds it to the Empress to make her go insane. When the Empress begins to defy the Emperor by refusing to take the 'medicine', he asks his son to feed it to her, however he refuses to do so and ends his own life in the final scene of the film. Also in this closing scene, the Empress is seen flinging the poison across the room, landing on the table and burning the material and turning it black. This reveals that the 'medicine' is actually poison, and here black is seen to represent the negativity in their lives throughout the film. This is ironic, however, as in traditional Chinese colour theory, BLACK is supposed to portray moral decency.
Emperor Ping is a key character in the film and his styling is that of great detail. In this still taken from the film, the Emperor is shown to be wearing a gold body armour. This represents that the armour is acting as a protective barrier for his emotional being, through the fight for power with the Empress, as well as a barrier for his physical being. The armour being golden also reinforces that the Emperor is a very important, wealthy man of a high importance. Emperor Ping also has very straight eyebrows that appear out from his helmet in a slight downwards diagonal towards his nose. This gives the impression that he is a stern man that can be really evil.
During the film the Emperor disguises poison as medicine and feeds it to the Empress to make her go insane. When the Empress begins to defy the Emperor by refusing to take the 'medicine', he asks his son to feed it to her, however he refuses to do so and ends his own life in the final scene of the film. Also in this closing scene, the Empress is seen flinging the poison across the room, landing on the table and burning the material and turning it black. This reveals that the 'medicine' is actually poison, and here black is seen to represent the negativity in their lives throughout the film. This is ironic, however, as in traditional Chinese colour theory, BLACK is supposed to portray moral decency.
