CAST: Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, Liu Ye

DIRECTOR: Zhang Yimou

The Forbidden City has been home to many unspoken secrets and unmentionable conspiracies. Here’s the latest one: about an Emperor (Yun-Fat) trying to slowly poison his wife into madness; about an Empress (Li) having a secret affair with her stepson, the Crown Prince; and the rebellion that results.

Look past the almost blinding visual splendour (it’s not for nothing that the film’s title has ‘golden’ in it) and this is a reasonably powerful film about a life led in almost complete awe and fear of one man, and about how repressive a royal existence could be. Especially in the 10th century.

Gong Li gives a decent performance as the frightened Empress pushing herself into rebellion despite the fate that awaits her. Liu Ye as Crown Prince Wan is also good.

But everything else pales before the opulence that Yimou lays out, from the palace pillars and corridors lined in multi-colour silk, the diaphanous curtains and the exquisite screens, to the robes weighed down in gold worn by the Emperor and Empress. Curse of the Golden Flower features the largest set ever built for a movie in China; 1,000 real soldiers were used in the final battle (their numbers are evident as they cut across the screen in a golden, shimmering swathe); and it took 20 days to shoot the war. One Sanjay Leela Bhansali wouldn’t want to miss out on this one.