Curse of the Golden Flower

Curse of the Golden Flower (***)

I didn't know it until I read it yesterday, but it certainly didn't surprise me to learn that the Opening Ceremonies to last year's Beijing Olympics were directed by the same person who directed Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou. The ceremonies wowed people all over the world, as they were massive in scale and the planning and coordination that went into them seemed nearly impossible. Whereas America was content to honor Muhammad Ali and allow him to deliberately walk his way over and light the Olympic torch during the '96 games in Atlanta, Yimou had dudes running sideways along the top of the stadium while seemingly thousands of people played drums in sequence. Yimou's movies have a lot of scenes that evoke the same feeling. They pay homage to the long-running tradition of Chinese wire-fighting movies, where every character seems to have a God-like aura and basic of physics are pretty much a passing triviality. Yimou takes full advantage of modern day CGI technology to play up this concept as much as possible. There's no such thing as one archer shooting one arrow in a Zhang Yimou movie. Rather, there's going to be arrows being fired, they're going to be fired all at once from a seemingly endlessly sized army, moving in a robot-like unison, and about half of them will then be cleaved in two in a split second by one of the main characters waving his halberd around. The thing is, even with these orgies of visuals going on, Hero and House of Flying Daggers managed to be extremely good movies with very deep characters who form intimate relationships. Hero presents itself as a deceptively straight-forward martial arts movie and manages to tell a compelling mystery while exploring questions of morality and dispensing nuggets of zen-like philosophy. House of Flying Daggers told a classic tragic love story in a visually interesting way that still managed to remain deeply personal. Curse of the Golden Flower has many similar visuals as its predecessor, and in some scenes outdoes them in their technical impressiveness, but the underlying base of the film just isn't really all that interesting by comparison.

The movie takes place almost entirely within the confines of the Forbidden City during the Tang Dynasty, which I believe is named such due to the prevalence of artificially flavored orange drink in China at the time. The current emperor is Ping (Chow Yun-Fat), who at first glance seems to be, if nothing else, a strong and capable leader. Early on though, we begin to realize that Ping has some skeletons in his closet, although, based on what we see of the inner-workings of the Forbidden City in the movie, he probably doesn't actually have a closet, but rather organizes his clothes using some strange, giant device that requires about 50 servants to operate and maintain. Prince Jai, Ping's first born son and heir to the throne, has just returned from "the frontier" as the film begins, and, after an impromptu father-son sparring match, Ping seems pleased with his progress as a fighter and leader. The Emperor's second son, Prince Wan, meanwhile, has remained within the walls of the Forbidden City, and has apparently spent most of his time while his brother was away doing the horizontal monster mash. He's had a quasi-incestuous relationship with the woman who is not his birth mother, but is the current Emperess (Gong Li), and his now secretly involved with the daughter of the Imperial doctor. He seems to have somewhat of a rivalry with Jai for who should be the true heir to the throne. There is a third son as well, Yu, who seems quieter than his older siblings at first but not because, we learn later, he has no opinion on any of the goings on in his family.

Not long after all this is set up, we get the main hook of the story: Emperor Ping is secretly hiding a slow-acting poison in his wife's "medication" for anemia. He goes to great lengths to hide this, but not great enough, and the Empress's discovery of her husband's plot against her leads to a power struggle, and divided loyalties amongst the sons. The conflict comes to a head on the night of the start of the Chrysanthemum Festival, (they don't really explain the significance of this celebration) when the Forbidden City erupts in violence between the various factions loyal to different members of the royal family. These action scenes are quite amazing in their technical excellence, and at times rival some of the Lord of the Rings battles in their sheer size, and in the amount of what is going on in a single shot through the use of CGI. However, for all the care that went into making them, I thought there was a certain hollowness to them.

What bothers me most, I think, is just how much outward destruction is caused through the royal family's very insular conflict. In the various stages of the climactic battle, we see assassins perched on the ceiling swiftly cut through about a dozen unsuspecting soldiers using metal scythes connected to ropes that they throw, soldiers getting impaled as they try and breach a spiked wall that's been set up in the city courtyard, and basically get killed in all sorts of other creative ways. In one part in particular, I couldn't help but think of the Dynasty Warriors games, as Jai continuously slaughters a host of troops who have surrounded him and are attempting to capture him alive. Their tactic of just sort of gradually trying to inch toward him in lock step clearly doesn't work, but they just sort of mindlessly continue doing it, as if that's the only think they know how to do, like a particularly slow-witted AI controlled soldier in a video game.

After the battle is over, we see servants pour out from every direction, to roll out new carpets to replace the blood-soaked ones, and to put out new chrysanthemums, since a bunch of them got knocked over during the battle. None of the servants nor any of the soliders give any clear evidence that they really know the full extent of what's going on, or that they really care at all about the royal family's issues. The battle doesn't really seem to mean anything for them, except another hurdle that they're going to have to get over while they do their duty paying deference to their leaders and setting up for the festival. Its probably true that throughout much of Imperial China, and probably through out much of the history of any country led by divine royalty, that the actions and motivations of the royal family often weren't in the best interest of the "common-folk." I'm not saying that the movie isn't accurate in its depiction. But what bothered me is that there isn't really a voice for the common person in the movie. The only characters outside of the royal family who are developed at all, are the Imperial Doctor, his wife, and his daughter, and in their case its only because they all have a role in the subterfuge going on within the Emperor's family. All the other countless people within the walls of the Forbidden City just sort of run around as specks of CGI, their purpose being nothing except to be virtual stagehands, moving props around during battles the meanings of which are only significant to a few select people, and maybe get killed in the process. Even beyond the sort of moral hazard that this creates, the movie just has a clostrophobic feel to it. Some of the best scene in Yimou's pervious works were scenes like the bamboo forest chase in House of Flying Daggers. Here there's a similar scene after the Imperial Doctor is promoted to governor of an outlying province and ends up getting chased on horseback through a mountainous region. Its probably the most exciting scene in the movie, there's just not enough of it.

The power struggle for the throne and for the life of the Emperess was an interesting enough plot to hold my interest, but I just didn't feel that the sum total of the movie was as substantive as Yimou's other movies. Hero had a lot of the same CGI-driven battles, and in much the same way focused only on a few central characters while the commoners toiled around them, but I found Hero to be a much more thoughtful and more interesting movie. A cental part of Hero is a scroll of calligraphy Jet Li's character gives to the Emperor, (different Emperor, obviously) the character on which is one of 20 different ways to write the word "Sword." The Emperor studies it and has a revelation about what it represents and what sort of beliefs about the nature of combat Jet Li's character holds. To me, that was more interesting than anything said by Emperor Ping or any other character in Curse of the Golden Flower. There is a scene in Curse where the family is sitting around eating a meal ceremoniously, and Ping explains how the layout of the elaborate table and carpeting that they're sitting around represents the universe, which seems like its going to head down the same path as the calligraphy scene in Hero. It shows up again at the end of the film, but the symbolism there seems kind of obvious and not very deep by comparison. If I watch Curse more, I may notice things that I didn't initally that change my view of the movie, but my first impression was that it doesn't have quite the impact that either Hero or House of Flying Daggers has.

Curse of the Golden Flower is an entertaining movie. There are some beautiful and technically impressive shots, the story will hold your interest, and the music and cinematography similarly interesting. If I had to pick one film to represent Zhang Yimou's work, though, out of what I've seen, I likely wouldn't pick this one.

The Bradley Effect

If you had somewhere around 15 games in your "How long will it take Cubs fans to get pissed off at Milton Bradley?" pool, congratulations, because you win. Bradley is still nursing a groin injury that he suffered on April 12th against the Brewers. On April 22nd, he started in right field and by all accounts he seemed poised to jump back into the every day lineup, but went 0-for-4 with 3 Ks and wasn't running at full speed, and so he has again been relegated to the bench. He has been used sporadically as a pinch hitter, and in one such appearance he made physical contact with an umpire arguing balls and strikes and got hit with a two game suspension. For reasons unbeknownst to me and most everybody else, he has decided to appeal the suspension, even though he could easily have served the suspension while being out with a groin injury with no real added detriment to the team. While he's managed to draw some walks, he's just 1-for-21 hitting, so yes, he has less base hits than he has games suspended as a Cub. Meanwhile, Bradley's contentious relationship with the media, something he was known for in Texas, appears to have manifested itself in Chicago, as Bradley accused the media of taking his quotes out of context and turning the fans against him, even though he didn't really seem to have a specific example of this actually happening. As I'm finishing writing this, the Cubs are playing out in Arizona and Bradley is in the lineup again. We'll see if he stays there this time. 0-for-1 thus far.

The Cubs also recently brought up Jeff Samardjia from AAA and, somewhat curiously designed Luis Vizciano for assignment for the corresponding move. In truth, there weren't a lot of other attractive options. Angel Guzman is out of options, so he pretty much has to stay up, as does David Patton, who is a Rule 5 pick from the Rockies, which means that he goes back to Colorado if the Cubs don't keep him up. But not only had Vizciano not allowed an earned run yet, he was also just signed at the start of the season for $3.5 million. Its possible that Vizciano doesn't get picked up by another team (I want to say that you can pick up a guy that got DFAed for half of his salary, or something along those lines), accepts assignment to the minors, and eventually makes his way back to the Major League club, but as of right now, Vizciano essentially made $3.5 million dollars for pitching 2 weeks. The rightys in the bullpen have certainly been pretty shaky with the exeption of Carlos Marmol, but the biggest issue in the bullpen right now is Neal Cotts, the Cubs' sole lefty. They've been trying to bring him in situationally against leftys in close games, but he's had a ton of problems with walking people. Some people have suggested that Samardjia should go to the rotation so Sean Marshall can head to the bullpen and become a left-handed situational guy. This would seem to be a little extreme, if you ask me. Marshall has looked okay so far as a starter, with a decent-by-5th-starter-standards 4.91 ERA, and Samardjia got roughed up a little bit in his first appearance since getting called up. There doesn't seem to be many good options available though. It wasn't too long ago that the Cubs were carrying 3 leftys in the pen and couldn't find innings for all of them.

The Many Moods of Kosuke

The Cubs are currently 5-4, which may be somewhat underwhelming given their high expectations and the relative weakness of the rest of the NL Central, but, while some of the losses have been quite frustrating, none of them have really disturbed me all that greatly. The bullpen has had some early issues, which Kevin Gregg being less than lights out in the closer's role, and the hitting has been very up and down, but ultimately I haven't seen anything in the nine games played thus far that radically changes my outlook of the team. Geovany Soto has been banged up early on (maybe a product of playing in the World Baseball Classic) and is hitting just .071. You would certainly expect him to heat up. Milton Bradley is also battling a groin injury (of course, Bradley being achey at times during the year was something fully expected going in) and has hit just .056, though he has been able to draw some walks in key situations, and has had enough good ABs to say that he's been helping the club.

One very positive thing amongst the somewhat luc-warm start has been the play of Kosuke Fukudome. Kosuke already has 3 home runs on the year, including a three-run shot yesterday against the Cardinals which, at the time, gave them the lead, though they couldn't hold it. Fukudome wound up with only 10 home runs for all of last year. Of course, early in the season was when Fukudome was at his most brilliant last year, and he's output got progressively worse as the season went on. Will the same thing happen this year? Who knows. What we can do now, though the mighty power of Baseball Reference, is compare what Kosuke did at the start of last season to what he's done 9 games into this season. With a sample size of 9 games, who knows how much its really worth, but whatever, it'll be fun!

Through 9 games:

stat	2008	2009
Avg	.371	.375
OBP	.488	.487
Slg	.543	.781
OPS	1.031	1.268
HRs	1	3
RBIs	6	8
K	6	4

The power numbers are actually better, and the average and OBP are very close. Maybe, just maybe, that with Fukudome-san having a year to get acquainted with the increased travel in the MLB and playing outdoors (lots of domes in Japanese baseball, so I'm told), he'll be able to maintain this pace more consistently throughout the year. Maybe wishful thinking, but it doesn't seem impossible either.

Today the Cubs are playing the Cardinals with Carlos Zambrano on the mound against a 24 year old making his Major League debut. If they lose their third in a row today given these circumstances, I'll be a little bit more down on them than after any of the 4 losses to this point. Whatever happens though, its still very, very early yet.

Street Fighter IV

After being very underwhelmed by the whole experience of Prince of Persia, when I perused the shelves in Best Buy a few weeks ago, I decided to pick up a game where there wouldn't be a lot of mystery as to what I was going to get. As such, I ended up settling on Street Fighter IV. I'm not really what I would consider a veteran of tournament fighters, and the one series that I've gotten reasonably deeply into--Soul Calibur--differs quite a bit from Street Fighter. I did own and played a fair amount of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, though never really got particularly good at it. So basically, I'm going into Street Fighter IV mildly aware of the basics of the game, though certainly still at a novice level (this was confirmed a couple of weekends ago playing my friend who used to play SF Alpha 2 competitively, and getting pretty consistently owned).

The biggest and most immediately recognizable difference from the classic SF games is the use of fully 3D models for characters instead of 2D sprites. Its still a 2D fighter, but its now 2D fighting in a 3D environment. Despite the switch, the game still retains most of the same feel that the earlier 2D iterations of the series had. The visuals look detailed enough to warrant being on a next-generation system, while still retaining some of the exaggerated anime-ish quirks that have been a trademark of the series. Chun Li's kicks still inexplicably create neon blue trails of light, E. Honda's fists still fade into a Loony Toons-esque blur, etc. I always thought Street Fighter II had a better look and feel to it compared to its once direct competitor Mortal Kombat, which used sprites that were generated from captures of real people dressed up like the characters. While, understandably, the MK characters looked more like real people in still shots, I thought in the context of the game the MK graphics looked rigid and awkward, while SF's "cartoonyness" allowed it to be more fluid. But even in an era where 3D motion capture is commonplace in game development, I don't think these little flourishes of exaggeration feel out of place and still have a certain charm to them.

The core gameplay elements have remained pretty much true to what its always been, and veteran players will be able to recognize that a lot of the basic button combinations are still the same. A hadoken is still down, forward, punch, for example. Borrowing from the Alpha and MvC era games, the game gives each fighter an "EX gague" and a "Revenge gauge." The EX gague can be used to pull of "EX" versions of certain moves, which you can do by simply adding another punch or kick button at the end of the move. If it fills up all the way, you can try and pull off your Super Combo, where everything on screen turns into an orgasm of anime speed lines. Your Revenge Gauge is used for your Ultra Combo, which is generally an even more powerful version of the Super Combo, and is usually done with the same button combination, only with all three punch/kick buttons at the end. They also added a new charge-up move that you can use with each fighter for which you hold down medium punch and medium kick simultaneously. As the move is charging up you can absorb one hit from your opponent, and if you're able to get it off and land it, it'll do a big chunck of damage and stun your opponent.

As I said above, I'm not good at all against a veteran human opponent at this point, but against the computer I feel as if I'm slowly improving. It certainly isn't too difficult to start playing from scratch and have at least some base level of effectiveness against the CPU on low difficulty without hours and hours of effort. The game has the traditional tournament fighter training mode, wherein a dummy oppnent just kind of sits there as you beat the crap out of him. It also, however, has what it has a "Trial" mode which is basically a much more sophisticated version of the basic training mode idea. With each character you try and pass five separate levels, in which you first try and execute the character's basic movies, and then move on to pulling off sophisticated combos. You unlock artwork doing this, so you feel like you're accomplishing something as you're learning. I thought this was a great addition, and I'm not sure why they felt the need to bury it in the Challenge Mode menu alongside the not at all related Time Attack and Survival Modes.

The game brings back most of the old mainstays of the Street Fighter series, and introduces some new ones as well. They range from Abel, a very serious looking mixed martial artist, to El Fuerte, a completely off the wall masked luchador character who, in his opening cutscene, explains that he aspires to become a chef and that he's joining the tournament to get recipies from the other fighters. Another new character, Rufus, as an obese, loudmouthed American (is it just me, or does it seem like there's some no too subtle social commentary about Americans in the Street Fighter games) is also supposed to be funny, but if you ask me, he's more annoying than anything else. Having read through some of the official strategy guide and elsewhere, it doesn't seem like any of the new characters are all that effective at a high level, but their move sets are often pretty unique (El Fuerte has one sprint that he goes into where he performs six different moves coming out of it based on the attack button that's pressed after its started) and should serve to keep the game fresh over a long period of time.

After Prince of Persia, I basically just wanted a game where I knew going in exactly what it was going to basically consist of. Street Fighter 4, indeed, sticks to the basic formula that its been doing for well over a decade now, but adds enough new elements and polishes up the look enough to justify it being on PS3 and X-Box 360. If you love tournament fighters, well, you probably already know about SF4, but if you don't, you should run out and pick it up.

Early Returns

The first two Cubs games of '09 are in the books, and they'll finish out their first series tonight at Minute Maid Park in Houston. After winning the opener 4-2, the Cubs lost last night 3-2 in 10 innings. Starters Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster both looked very good for their parts, the difference being that Dempster simply got more fun support. Even if Dempster regresses a little bit from his career year last year, there's no reason to believe that this rotation won't be right near the top of the NL. Kosuke Fukudome went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and grounded into a double play in the opener, and really didn't do anything to instill confidence that his 2009 season will be more like his first half of '08 than the second. Aramis Ramirez also evoked some bad memories last night, getting thrown out with relative ease by Carlos Lee playing a ball off the wall on a hit that Aramis tried to stretch from a single to a double. Ramirez has made some pretty awful baserunning decisions in the past, but hopefully that was more a result of the somewhat odd layout of the Minute Maid Park outfield and not part of a continuing pattern.

Two games does not make a season, but just because I talked about it in my last post, I suppose I'll mention what Kevin Gregg and Carlos Marmol have done. Marmol pitched the 8th inning in the opener, and allowed just a walk which he left stranded. Gregg came in to save the game and allowed a couple of baserunner, one of which came around to score before nailing down the save. Gregg then pitched the 10th last night after Neil Cotts put two men on with no one out, and failed to get out of the job, giving up the game winning hit to Jeff Keppinger. Listening to the radio this morning, people seem to already be wringing their hands in concern over this. I'm on record as saying that I think Marmol is the better pitcher, but two games is just a wee bit too small of a time frame to be evaluating whether a change should be made. Same goes for anything that people might be concerned about, frankly. Consider that the defending champion Phillies, fielding much the same team that they won with last year, are 0-2 in their opening series against the Braves, and are losing 9-3 in the finale as I write this. Really the only reason why I am writing this is because I don't have any movies to write about at the moment. Baseball season is a loooong season.

In Closing

The Cubs are winding down Spring Training, and will start the season proper next Monday night in Houston. Nothing terribly eventful has happened in Spring Training, which is a good thing, because really the most eventually thing you can imagine happening is someone important getting hurt. There was a bit of news earlier in the week, though, and somewhat surprising news at that, in the form of Kevin Gregg being named close by Lou Pinella. It was a decision, apparently, based largely off of their performances during Spring Training. Spring Training doesn't give you a really good sample of a player's ability to begin with, both in terms of playing time, and the quality of players they're facing, and Marmol's spring was truncated this year because he played for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. He did blow a save in the World Baseball Classic against a team of almost entirely minor leaguers in the form of the Netherlands, but that was a) one game and b) party due to bad defense. For what its worth, their spring training stats were as follows (source: mlb.com):

	IP	ERA	H	BB	K
Kevin Gregg	9.1	0.00	4	2	13
Carlos Marmol	9.0	4.00	6	1*	12

*Also had 5 HBPs.

Gregg's stats are certainly impressive, and better than Marmol's, but again, I think its undeniable that Spring Training stats have an inherent unreliability, and personally, I would've made it Marmol's job to lose. Obviously, Pinella is seeing guys work out every day, not just playing in exhibition games, but just looking at what the two did during games, I certainly don't think Marmol did anything that would make you suggest that he was going to be much less effective this year than last year, when he most certainly was playing at a closer type level, even wtih a few big hiccups along the way. Basically, if you ask me, Marmol should be the closer for two reasons:

1. I'm still pretty sure that Marmol is the better pitcher. In his career as a reliever, Marmol's ERA is 2.39 (baseball-reference.com). Kevin Gregg's best full year in the majors was last year with the Marlins, where he posted an ERA of 3.41, and its 3.90 in his career as a reliever. Marmol is also way harder to hit against for both righties and lefties. Gregg's K/BB ratio is better, and Marmol has certainly shown some control issues, but I don't think its really a big enough issue to matter in the face of how much harder it is for opponents to hit off of Marmol.

Really though, even if Gregg starts as the closer, it doesn't mean that he has to stay the closer. And even if he struggles and Lou decides to keep him as closer throughout the regular season for some reason, in theory, the Cubs should be better than the rest of the division to the point where it really shouldn't matter. What matters is whether the Cubs have someone who can be lights out to finish off a playoff game come October (provider the Cubs actually have a lead late in a playoff game this year... rrrr...). That brings me to point 2.

2. Its very much possible that Marmol will have more wear put on him as a set-up man than as a closer. Usually, the set-up man is thought of as the guy who pitches the 8th inning before the closer is going to come in to pitch the 9th. However, there were times last year, when Marmol would be brought in a jam in the 7th, have to work out of it, then continue on to pitch the 8th, sometimes batting in between that time. If you sift through his game log, you'll find a bunch of instances of Marmol throwing 30+ pitches, a couple instances of him throwing 40+ pitches, and on top of that, a bunch of instances of him throwing on back to back days. Dan Bernstein, a radio show host for 670 The Score here in the Chicagoland area, has taken to calling Marmol Lou Pinella's "blankie," because sometimes he seems to be what Pinella uses to make himself feel safe again in whatever tense situation arises, regardless of what sort of rest Marmol has had. Carlos Marmol made the All-Star team last year because he was absolutely lights out for much of the first half, but by the time the All-Star game rolled around, his ERA had ballooned into the fours and looked very un-All-Star like. It took some time for Carlos to seemingly get himself right again. A lot of people suspected this to be due to overuse at the time, and if Pinella uses Marmol in a similar fashion in this year, it'll make a lot of people, including me, nervous again.

Carlos Marmol is 26, and there's no reason why he shouldn't get even better than he is now in the next couple of years and become a perennial All-Star contender. But he's a hard-throwing power pitcher, and, while he hasn't shown himself to be injury prone to this point, all you have to do is look at the rise and fall of a pitcher like Eric Gagne to want to be weary of how much abuse you put on the arm of a pitcher like Marmol. The Cubs are trying to win now, and they should use Marmol to try and win now, but they should do it within reason, with the knowledge that he should be able to help the Cubs now AND in the years to come.