Curse Of The Golden Flower: Colour, Symbolism and Emotion

Curse Of The Golden Flower (2006) Zhang Yimou

Yet again, Zhang Yimou has delivered another visually satisfying martial arts drama. Curse Of The Golden Flower is set in the late Tang Dynasty in A.D. 928 China and evolves around the themes of betrayal and dysfunction - a rotting marriage of a cruel emperor and his wife, and a battle for power.

At the beginning of the film, the audience is drowned in awe by the intense attention to detail and rich colour, the majority of the film is based in the palace of mostly gold and red. Zhang Yimou, known for his artistic play on colour, uses the primary colours of red and yellow throughout the film to portray the sheer power of the characters.  From the beginning to the end, the path to destruction is paved with gold. It seems the director has found the application of color a way of replacing emotional expression. The gold creates a radiant, lustrous atmosphere.

In Chinese Culture, red symbolises good fortune, joy and happiness, whilst gold/yellow symbolises neutrality and good luck - yellow was also the colour of Imperial China and is held as the symbolic colour of the five legendary emperors. Ironically, this film brings the opposite of good fortune, joy and happiness - etched within the walls of gold, is much pain and suffering. The appearance of everything in this film is beautiful, but the people are tainted, their morals and personalities morphed with evil.

The first character we are introduced to is the Empress.

The makeup and hair styling is perfection, the gold that she wears, even on her lips suggests the sheer amount of power she in capable of. The straight eyebrows give her an youthful appearance, but also mask some emotion, at this point the audience are still guessing if they are witnessing a villain. The eyes and lip makeup uses more of a copper shade to compliment the overall gold.

The Emperor uses poison disguised as medicine to cause the Empress to eventually go insane and when his wife refuses to take her 'medicine', he orders his son to be the one who feeds her it, in the final scene of the film, he refuses by ending his own life. Again, here is a play on colour, the medicine is served in a green tinted glass cup, which makes the liquid appear a dark green colour. Anything dark green as a liquid does not appear appetising and the dark green liquid in western culture is commonly associated with poison or rotting meats.

Here, we see that the maid is putting a chrysanthemum in the Empress's hair. In China, chrysanthemums symbolise long life and duration and are associated with the ninth lunar month. The chrysanthemum symbol pops up throughout the film, used with greater irony every time. The film takes the chrysanthemum symbol to new levels with the breath taking sea of chrysanthemums surrounding the palace. At first you see nothing but beautiful flowers but at a closer look, this golden flower is a symbol of rebellion, the main archetype in the film - hence the film's title Curse Of The Golden Flower. Therefore, when the Empress wears a chrysanthemum on in her hair, she reveals her determination to resist her husbands rule.

Each day, in front of your father, I have to feign ignorance. Every two hours, I swallow this poison without protest. Nobody knows what is happening. I shall die exactly as your father intends. A half-wit. But I refuse to submit without a fight. On the night of the Festival, I shall put an end to all this.

- Empress Phoenix 

We don't need introducing to the emperor, in his golden armour, we see the power that he holds. The golden amour appears to be indestructible and we can appreciate the fantastic attention to detail on the suit, from dragons to phoenixes. In a 2007 interview with Zhang Yimou, he explains that gold is the colour of the Emperor, therefore gold is adapted to all costume designs.

It took me a while to notice that the Emperors eyes were a grey colour - the actor playing the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) has naturally dark brown eyes. Grey contacts may have been applied to either show his deterioration with age and his losing of power or to signal the coldness in his character. In the screenshot below, his grey eyes and lazy expression really convey an apathetic attitude.

Below we can see that the chrysanthemum symbol has once again been used, this time embroidered onto the soldiers scarfs as they run into battle, only to be tainted red. Zhang Yimou often places a major and obvious symbol throughout the film. In Raise the Red Lantern, the major symbol was the red lantern, and in Hero, the major symbol was the word for sword. In Curse of the Golden Flower, the major symbol is the chrysanthemum. Zhang utilizes this as a constant symbol for the theme of the intricacy of betrayal and its consequences. It is present throughout the movie on props, and is blatantly stated in the title (similar to Raise the Red Lantern).

The end of the film is left open - there is no resolution, it is just the end. We just know that the chrysanthemum festival has been ruined. In the banquet scene, the Emperor explains:

The terrace is round, the table is square. What do they represent? That represents the Heaven is round, and the Earth is square. The law of the heavens… dictates the rule of earthly life. Under the circle, within the square, everyone has his proper placement. This is called natural law. Emperor, Courtier, Father, Son…loyalty, filial piety, ritual and righteousness… All relationships obey natural law. - The Emperor 

In the last scene of the film, we see the Empress fling the medicine into the air, and as it lands on to the centre of the table, it burns the material and turns it black - revealing the poison. This is symbolic, it destroys the Emperors idea of the law of heavens and natural law. Throwing away the medicine shows her defiance, and she even though she is crushed in every way, she doesn't submit to his rules.

Curse Of The Golden Flower - Ending Scene

Bibliography

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/movies/21flow.html?_r=0
http://shakespeare-gesellschaft.de/publikationen/seminar/ausgabe2008/sunny-tien.html