Michael and I went to see Curse of the Golden Flower last night. (Why we got that and not Fearless [despite the fact they had a huge poster up for Fearless] is beyond my comprehension.)

It wasn’t bad. But it was even more depressing than The House of Flying Daggers. So it wasn’t precisely what I was in the mood for.

However, the thing that really surprised me was the costuming. The costumes were incredibly lavish. Beyond anything I could have imagined.

And that was really the problem. I simply couldn’t imagine these costumes as fitting into the proposed time period.

Now if I’m wrong, I’d love to be corrected–I’m fascinated by history, and love to learn little historical details–but the dresses seemed almost Elizabethan to me, what with the smooshed breast look.

Which I found quite distracting, since every time I saw someone trying to do something– anything– in one of those dresses, all I could think was, “Ow! Ow! Ow!” and “How is she not falling out of that?!”

Nor was I sure about the armor. Could someone really fight–and fight well–in that armour? If it was metal–and it certainly looked like metal–wouldn’t have it been too heavy for them to move easily?

The other thing that surprised me was that there was very little marshal arts in this movie. There were huge, giant, monster, gory battle scenes. But very little of the gorgeous hand-to-hand fight scenes that I was expecting. So instead of skill and technique, that I like and find fascinating to watch, I got gore and blood and lots of hacking and slashing.

Which I don’t like.

Additionally, some of the scenes were pretty obviously CGI. Which isn’t bad in and of itself, except that whenever I see CGI battle scenes, I always think, “Look! Orcs! They’re too dumb to run away from the battle!” Which was also distracting.

So, it was interesting, but it was no where near is good as House of Flying Daggers or Hero. Mostly because my disbelief kept being unsuspended.