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Curse of the Golden Flower breaks Chinese box office record
2006-12-19
The latest film of Chinese director Zhang Yimou, "The Curse of the Golden Flower" has raked in 96 million yuan (12.4 million dollars) on its weekend debut, a box office record. Zhang's blockbuster, starring leading lady Gong Li and Hong Kong star Chow Yun-Fat, easily outclassed other film offerings showing in Chinese theaters since it debuted on Thursday, the Beijing Legal Evening News reported Tuesday. The paper said the new film grossed more than 30 million yuan each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, doing better than the opening weekends of China's top grossing films-ever that include "Titanic," "Hero," and "The Promise." No figure was given for China's previous highest grossing weekend film debut. But according to Xinhua news agency, the current box office record in China was set in 1998 by "Titanic," which grossed 350 million yuan, while Zhang's "Hero" raked in 250 million yuan in 2002 setting a record for a Chinese-made movie. Zhang's new film took in 15 million yuan in its first five hours, Xinhua said. The new film tells the story of an imperial family which is slowly falling into decline, with battle scenes largely fought out between the sons of the emperor and empress played by Chow and Gong respectively. "Curse does dazzle the eye, but its story plays like a bad soap opera," said Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter. "This emperor's family is so treacherous as to make Hamlet seem like a fairly well-adjusted member of an easy-going household." Other reviewers praised the film as the best of Zhang's martial arts epics that also include "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers," citing the director's lavish use of colors and his cynical theme of corruption in high positions of power. "Sumptuous as embroidered brocade, Curse of the Golden Flower outdoes the last two entries in spectacle," film critic Michael Guilln wrote. "Its elegance is not only in its production design, but in the stark lines of its dark story: a brooding meditation on the corrosive heart of gold."
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