Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you have been intrigued by previous combinations of Chinese and Western sounds in film scores of the 2000's and are ready for an almost perfect blend of massive choral and orchestral ensembles with Eastern solo instruments. Avoid it... if the epic chants of The Lion in Winter or The 13th Warrior, or the presence of any Chinese instruments, get on your nerves despite the harmonic nature of their underlying structures. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Curse of the Golden Flower: (Shigeru Umebayashi) Director Zhang Yimou has proven through the years that he is capable of both high melodrama and extreme action, ranging from Raise the Red Lantern to House of Flying Daggers in his Mandarin-language efforts. While Curse of the Golden Flower is stylistically similar in its martial arts blend to the more recent Hero end of the spectrum, the 2006 film is a blazing attempt to combine the spectacle of the battle-driven, computer-generation action with the intrigue of a true Shakespearian story. Curse of the Golden Flower does have the highly stylish action and brilliant cinematography of the martial favorites, but its story, based on a 1930's Chinese play and transferred back to its proper setting in the 10th Century, is a merging of Hamlet and The Lion in Winter. The Chinese Emperor is slowly poisoning the Empress for a variety of reasons, including incest and betrayal. The Empress is sexually involved with one of the Emperor's sons and is plotting with others to overthrow the Emperor. Other characters become tangled in the web of murder and deceit, with the script using the elegance of complex Shakespearian linguistics while offering the revolting but strikingly enticing personality conflicts and scheming of the various factions in The Lion in Winter. It may not be entirely fresh, and critics have remarked that the complicated layers in the story make it a tad difficult for Western audiences to completely understand, but nobody has questioned the remarkable beauty of the film's use of colors and other stunning visual elements. Even if you can't comprehend the duplicitous actions of the primary characters (the cast lead by Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat is also praised), Curse of the Golden Flower is an event to see and hear, and Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi does not disappoint in his assignment. Making the transition from rock music into a decade of successful film scoring, Umebayashi was chosen by Yimou to replace Tan Dun for his House of Flying Daggers in 2004, yielding a score that has been generally applauded for continuing the blend of Western and Eastern elements that Dun had helped make popular several years prior. Earlier in the year, Umebayashi struggled to a degree with the merging of Chinese, Japanese, and Western sounds for Jet Li's Fearless, never bringing the three elements together in a satisfying mix. No such problem exists in Curse of the Golden Flower, but that's not necessarily due to a strikingly unique and layered balance of the aforementioned cultures. Instead, Umebayashi emphasizes the Western influences above the Chinese ones in Curse of the Golden Flower, creating a truly Shakespearian score that just happens to very effectively shine with the contribution of Chinese style. He really has seemed --perhaps even intentionally-- to use John Barry's score for The Lion in Winter as a template, for so much of Curse of the Golden Flower will remind of that Academy Award-winning 1968 score. The use of mass male and female voices, ranging widely in tone and often performing separately or in sonic battle, is both ancient and melodramatic to the extreme. Striking chants for both genders yield to subthemes for characters that involve extremely lofty female vocals or threateningly dominant and deep male ones. The chorus' performances range from elegantly free-flowing majesty to violent and sharp chants that create the perfect environment for high-class betrayal. Solo female vocals for the Empress' theme are operatic in tone and as spine-tingling in beauty as those in the latter half of John Williams' A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The orchestral mix is generous in the bass regions, enhancing the basses and cellos with remarkable clarity during the ensemble's plentiful performances of grand, sweeping harmony. The highly melodic nature of the orchestra's performances, consistent throughout the entire score (and with each major character treated to a dramatic, recurring motif), makes Curse of the Golden Flower a far more listenable score on album than Jet Li's Fearless. Several cues in Curse of the Golden Flower are almost strictly Western in rendering, with some hints of style not surprisingly reminiscent of Patrick Doyle's Hamlet from 1996. What makes this score transcend into the intoxicating overall piece that will impress you is the masterful incorporation of the Eastern sounds. Their presence in Curse of the Golden Flower is secondary in importance to the melodies and other ensemble performances, throwing the score into a Western realm that Klaus Badelt took advantage of with The Promise earlier 2006. Even for listeners weary of Eastern instruments like the dizi flutes and erhu violins, Curse of the Golden Flower will be a palatable score for your sensibilities. Umebayashi inserts these instruments as accent pieces, and when they perform in unison with a full string section, the resulting mix is magical. The handling of percussion is also superior here compared to Jet Li's Fearless. In the former score, lengthy sequences of solo drum performances in a very dry mix tended to be tiring after very short lengths, but in Curse of the Golden Flower Umebayashi presents them in a far more enjoyable, distantly ominous, and wet mix. A cue like "Imperial Ceremony" explodes with a combination of Eastern and Western percussion, including a multitude of cymbal and gong usage, all of which impressive even at great lengths. That's the key to the success of this score. Its emotions are often cold and relentless, lonely in solo performances and depressing in thematic sways, but you never tire of it. There are no unlistenable portions throughout its 50 minutes on album, a treat for all Western ears, though it would be interesting to learn from Chinese listeners if the score is too powerful in orchestra and chorus for their own sensibilities. If the score does have a weakness, it's an awkward one; Umebayashi doesn't feel the need to finish the statement of a theme when a cue ends. Instead, a performance of one of the score's several character themes can end mid-statement, leaving the listener with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion to the thought. Given the twists of plot on screen, and the sudden movements of intention, though, the tactic could be very effective. Overall, unlike The Promise, the score for Curse of the Golden Flower won't immediately blow you out of your seat. But its consistently morbid elegance, almost Gothic in places, will leave a lasting impression on you. Fans of varied choral work, especially in the kind of layers and rhythmic movement that many enjoyed in Jerry Goldsmith's The 13th Warrior, will find endless pleasure in this score. The final three tracks, amounting to nearly ten minutes of tying up loose ends with the score's themes, are not to be missed, and "Ending Title" is among the best cues of the entire year. The 50-minute album on Lakeshore is an addictive multi-cultural experience. ***** Track Listings:
Total Time: 49:08
All artwork and sound clips from Curse of the Golden Flower are Copyright © 2007, Lakeshore Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/16/07, updated 2/19/07. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2007-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
