转贴周黎明对<黄金甲>的英文影评以及本人翻译
Curse of the epic
By Raymond Zhou
Zhang Yimou's latest epic depicts an imperial power struggle shrouded in a thick cloud of morbidly incandescent colours. It leaves you dizzy with bewilderment. You'll either love it or hate it. There's no way you can walk out of the theatre with indifference.
"Curse of the Golden Flower" (aka "Mancheng jindai huangjinjia") is not for the feeble minded or the colour blind. Like all big-budget movies that mark the end-of-year holiday season in China, this visually outrageous pageantry is set in ancient times when power was not transferred smoothly from one generation to the next, especially among the royal family.
Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li play the emperor and the empress who are not exactly the Chinese equivalents of Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in "On Golden Pond."
The first half of the movie is entangled in expository quagmire and shows the emperor slowly poisoning her majesty's health through a strategically prescribed herb ingredient. The plot thickens when the eldest prince (Liu Ye) tries to disentangle his amorous ties with the empress, who is his stepmother. The prince is caught out when his affection wanders to the daughter of the royal doctor.
For those who are familiar with Cao Yu's classic play "Thunderstorm," from which the movie is adapted, the twists and turns in narration do not come as a surprise.
The melodramatic storyline has obvious roots in Shakespearean tragedies, such as the three siblings from "King Lear" and the pile-up of dead bodies in "Hamlet." Still, the suspenseful ending, which somewhat veers from the original story, is delivered with force and flourish.
For lovers of martial arts flicks, the wait is long and not necessarily worthwhile because this is basically "Raise the Red Lantern" raised to umpteenth degree of opulence and not the jaw-dropping action of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon."
Gong Li puts Joan Crawford to shame by giving a scenery-chewing performance as the long-suffering, conniving wife, whose sexual frustration simmers.
She is the anchor of this star-studded cast of well-delineated characters. Like Zhang Ziyi's character in "The Banquet," a role written for Gong in the first place, the Lady Macbeth-like heroine has to exude layers of inner worlds. Vengeance and lust for power are the most prominent and Gong Li reveals these traits in abundance.
Taiwanese rapper Jay Chou is given a chance to show off his acting chops. In at least two scenes, in which his character is moved by his stepmother's fate and decides to turn against his father, he proves he still has a future beyond being a teen idol.
The other actors, including Chow Yun Fat, turn in competent but not brilliant performances.
The real star of this show is Zhang Yimou's colour scheme rather than the flesh-and-blood human beings.
Instead of half a dozen palettes for his previous "Hero," one for each scene, Zhang has concocted a visual style that dangerously straddles the gorgeous and the gory, the luminous and the lurid.
The golden hues are so pervasive and saturated that they tend to smother any human subtleties as if they were the white powders caked on faces of French aristocrats living in opulent palaces.
The repeated walking through palace corridors, where exposition is given to temporary reflections on what's engulfing these Chinese royals, may symbolize the misery of these hapless people. The royals may be powerful, but they are prisoners of a gilded cage, slaves of a political system for which absolute power means the right to kill your own family members.
In terms of show-stopping grandiose, it is a throwback to the diva tradition, such as Norma Desmond's descent on her grand staircase in "Sunset Boulevard," where nothing is said but a lot is implied.
Technically, the "Curse" has a hard time climbing out of the shadow of "The Lord of the Rings." All the computer-generated-image armies and weaponry are a bit too obvious to be believable.
However, they do serve a purpose: In a power struggle of imperial proportion, everybody else is reduced to the status of ants, which is exactly the value of human life in such an environment.
Accentuated with surround sound, the marching of these armies made me shudder, but for all the wrong reasons.
I fear the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, of which Zhang is the principal helmsmen, may march to same martial tune.
The important thing is: Is Zhang Yimou extolling, as many believe he did in "Hero," or is he implicitly critical of it?
That may determine whether this swirl of swindle and swordplay with a sea of chrysanthemums in the backdrop turns out to be a soap opera with a grand budget or a grand opera with a disturbing political message.
The "Curse of the Golden Flower" opened nationwide yesterday.
(China Daily 12/15/2006 page13)
满城尽是大制作
英文原作者：周黎明
翻译：Edwarr Yan
张艺谋最新史诗大片讲述的是隐藏在闪耀色彩下的皇权之争，它留给你的是迷惑的眩晕。你要么会爱上这部电影，要么会厌恶它，总之在走出电影院的时候，你不会有中立的感觉。
《满城尽带黄金甲》不是拍给心志虚弱和色盲的人看的。像所有中国在年底上映的贺岁大片一样，这部在视觉上绚丽壮观的电影的故事背景是在中国古代，一个皇位相传尤其是皇室内部的皇位相传不是那么顺利的年代。
周润发和巩丽在片中分别扮演皇帝和皇后，他们并不是中国版的"On Golden Pond"中的Henry Fonda 和 Katherine Hepburn。
影片的前半段主要在说明故事的原委以及讲述皇帝正战略性的通过一种草药毒害皇后的身体。当太子试图了断他与皇后也就是她的继母之间的私情的时候，情节开始复杂起来。太子移情别恋到皇太医女儿身上的事随后也被皇后发现。
影片改编自曹隅的经典剧目-《雷雨》，熟悉这部作品的观众都不会对影片曲折的剧情和峰回路转的叙述方式感到惊讶。很明显，这部电影也借用了莎士比亚悲剧中的元素，比如《李尔王》中的三兄弟和《哈姆雷特》中的死尸成堆。尽管如此，充满悬念的结尾是影片的原创，而且是在暴力和繁盛的景象中展开。
对于动作电影的爱好者来说，等待是漫长的，但不一定是值得的，因为这部电影基本上相当于 Raise the Red Lantern" raised to umpteenth degree of opulence（这句话实在不好翻译出来），而不是像《卧虎藏龙》的动作场面那么另人叫绝。
巩丽扮演一个长期忍受煎熬，和后子乱伦，暗中密谋大计的妻子，她对每个镜头认真揣摩的表演使Joan Crawford（上世纪初美国著名女影星）黯然失色。她在此片明星云集的演员表中是最重要的一个，就好比章子怡在《夜宴》中的地位。此角色首先是为巩丽量身定做的——这个麦克白夫人式的女英雄不得不层层揭露自己的内心世界，对复仇的厚积薄发和对权利的欲望是这个角色最突出的特点，巩丽将其表现的淋漓尽致。台湾歌手周杰伦得到了一次展示自己表演才华的机会，至少在周扮演的角色被其母后的命运所打动和决定带兵攻打他父王这两场戏中，周证明了自己的将来并非只是一个少年偶像。其他演员包括周润发都只能说是表现的中规中矩。
其实这部电影真正的明星是张艺谋对色彩的调配。不像在《英雄》中，用了六种颜料，每种涂抹一个场景，在这部电影里，张调制出了一种微妙的跨越于华丽和血腥、闪亮和苍白之间色彩风格。金黄的色调更是使人窒息般的渗透于整部影片，就好象居住于富丽堂皇的宫殿里的法国贵族脸上的白粉。
皇宫走廊里反复走动的镜头所展示的画面让人霎时间会去思考是什么在吞噬着中国的皇室，或许这恰恰象征了这群“不幸的人”的悲惨之处。皇室成员拥有无上的权力，但他们就象是金色牢笼里的囚犯，政治体系的奴隶，在这个体系里，权利绝对到甚至可以杀害自己的家族成员。
In terms of show-stopping grandiose, it is a throwback to the diva tradition, such as Norma Desmond's descent on her grand staircase in "Sunset Boulevard," where nothing is said but a lot is implied. 这段话的意思我不太确定，只能凭自己的感觉试着翻译如下：
至于宏大的慢镜头场面，仿佛是回到了传统的歌剧中，比如Norma Desmond在《日落大道》中从大楼梯上落下的场面，此时无声胜有声。
从技术的角度看，《黄金甲》很难走出《指环王》的阴影，所有电脑合成的兵人画面都显得未免有些不可信。尽管如此，这样的视觉效果也有其特定意义：在皇权之争的世界里，每个兵人的地位就如同蚂蚁一样渺小，生命的价值也是一样微不足道。用环绕立体声加强的军队行进的场面让我很不爽的感到不寒而栗。我担心同样是由张艺谋导演的北京2008年奥运会开幕式的行进场面也会一样充满杀气。
重要的是：通过这部电影，张艺谋是想要像在《英雄》里那样颂扬什么，还是想要含蓄的批判什么呢？因为这可能决定着这部满眼是菊花，充满背叛和刀锋的电影到底是一部大烧钱的无聊肥皂剧，还是一部给人带来深刻启示的伟大电影。
《满城尽带黄金甲》于昨日全国首映
（中国日报 2006年12月15日 13版）
