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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Peter Debruge, Miami Herald: The melodrama here is of a sort seldom taken seriously outside Shakespeare's tragedies, and the final body count rivals Hamlet in its royal bloodletting. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Amidst all of this excess, an actor can too easily disappear, or be reduced to a hanger for a costume. But Gong Li, the standout in the cast, does wonders with her melodramatic role. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Don't judge the film too quickly, though. It really is like almost nothing you've seen before. Read more
David Germain, Associated Press: The stately Gong looks fantastic, the regal Chow looks cruelly calculating. Yet lacking the inner spark a richer script would provide, even they blend into the scenery. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: To put a point to it, the lavish period costumes, operatic mise-en-scene and ceremonial grandeur of Curse of the Golden Flower clashes fatally with the nuanced nastiness of modern marital discord. Read more
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: The movie has plenty to engage one's interest but little to sustain it. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Basically, the movie is soap opera done on a grand opera scale -- more Dynasty than Later Tang Dynasty. The immensity of Zhang's vision is eyepopping. Imagine several football fields worth of shimmering golden chrysanthemums. Read more
Scott Tobias, AV Club: Few filmmakers could produce so grand a spectacle, but [director] Zhang used to be good for more than just eye candy. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: As easy as this movie is to watch, it's artificially flavored. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: A period spectacle, steeped in awesome splendor and lethal palace intrigue, it climaxes in a stupendous battle scene and epic tragedy. Read more
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: A dramatic crisis erupts in bloodbaths that are filled with flash but little meaning. As armies clash, the cast also yields to histronic extremes. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Zhang Yimou's latest extravaganza is about palace intrigue during the Tan Dynasty, and it's exhaustingly action-packed. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: For all the swordplay and martial-arts fisticuffs, Curse is its most delirious as a lavish argument for the soap opera's roots in Greek tragedy. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: Make no mistake, all is epic, violent, bloody madness once the director hits his stride, and fans of Zhang's work will not want to miss Curse of the Golden Flower. But brush strokes are amiss here. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Curse of the Golden Flower is a watchable soap opera, but its marching-band martial-arts scenes are little more than weakly staged retreads of the ones in Zhang's Hero. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Curse is straightforward and solemn, lacking not for spectacle but for humor and a humanizing touch. Read more
David Chute, L.A. Weekly: In the end, Curse also looks alarmingly like a dry run for the opening and closing ceremonies Zhang has been hired to direct for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: There's only a rich family behaving badly, a kind of Dynasty with swords. And as tantalizing as that concept might sound to some Joan Collins fans, it's not enough to make this worth watching. Read more
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The ever-luminous Gong Li and the wickedly nonchalant Chow Yun-Fat are wonderful together. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's big, it's beautiful, and you won't leave the theater feeling cheated, no matter how much of a letdown the finale might be. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The morbid grandiosity of Curse of the Golden Flower is its own distinctive accomplishment, another remarkable chapter in the career of Asia's most important living filmmaker. Read more
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Its overabundance is more blessing than curse, however, provided you can suspend disbelief over a campy plot and focus on one lush, eye-popping scene after another. Read more
Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Zhang's script, based on Cao Yu's play, matches outlandish finery with outlandish bloodletting and body counts. Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Instead of transporting awe, the viewer groans under the weight of Zhang's self-conscious cinematic one-upmanship. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It's a minor wonder that Zhang and his crew manage to make the film as stirring as it is, given the high body count and the general disregard for tender sensibilities. Read more
TIME Magazine: It's less soap opera than grand opera, where matters of love and death are played at a perfect fever pitch. And grand this Golden Flower is. Read more
Robert Koehler, Variety: Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou's strangest and most troubled film, abounds in hysterical, mannered Tang Dynasty-era palace intrigue and dehumanized CGI battle sequences. Read more
Rob Nelson, Village Voice: The film's seemingly endless revelations of double- and triple-crosses would play like bad mid-'60s Hollywood epic wanking were it not for Zhang's mise-en-scene. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's just a great, old, wild ride at the movies. Read more