By this point most directors would have their hands full, but Mr. Zhang piles on the intrigue, adding a forbidden love affair, a vengeful first wife and two varieties of incest. His actors respond in kind, straining their facial muscles with silent-movie enthusiasm and doing everything but shooting flames from their eye sockets.
Teh awesome! (Review of The Curse of the Golden Flower, at NYT) There is also mention of Liberace and Jacqueline Susann as inspiration.
(Does China have telenovelas? If they don't, they really really should.)
That sounds like LES DIABOLIQUES, Matt. Was it B&W and French?
No, color and I think it must have been in English though I don't recall any dialogue. (My dad wouldn't have been watching French films on broadcast TV in 1970s Arkansas.)
There are trailers up for Juliet Landau's new movie.
Although, really - can anyone see Juliet Landau in a horror movie without thinking she's the one who is going to be terrorizing everyone?
(Does China have telenovelas? If they don't, they really really should.)
Taiwain does. Very long and involved and super soapy. But they're like long miniseries so characters can get killed off.
From the Zap2it review of "Curse of the Golden Flower":
As we watch, stunned, a bloody Jacobean tide of murder, adultery, incest and rebellion pours through the chambers of a glorious palace, into a courtyard covered with millions of golden cut chrysanthemums.
Robin Hood (the Disney version is the ur-text for Furries, incidentally)
Ack, David, why do you tell me these things? That's one of my favorite movies! I got no beef with Furries, but I really don't want to think about people sexualizing that movie.
...Oh! Suddenly I understand why some people get all upset about the mention of
Winnie the Pooh
slash.
Ack, David, why do you tell me these things?
I don't want you to go to a cocktail party full of sexual deviants and talk about how much you love the Disney
Robin Hood
and have them snicker up their sleeves. It's for your own good.
Anyway, it is to furries what
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
is to inflation fetishists. The childhood flick that caused their first tingle down below.
Robin Hood and Little John yiffing through the forest...