Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea

A dazzling costume epic, a spectacle for the eyes and for the soul.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

It's a work by cinematic geniuses that reveals beauty and terror in a long-ago time with a virtuoso intensity. You won't soon forget its mad, lovely sights and sounds.

Time by Richard Corliss

This is high, and high-wire, melodrama. It's less soap opera than grand opera, where matters of love and death are played at a perfect fever pitch. And grand this Golden Flower is.

Washington Post by Stephen Hunter

Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower is a kind of feast, an over-the-top, all-stops-pulled-out lollapalooza that means to play kitschy and grand at once.

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

Another remarkable chapter in the career of Asia's most important living filmmaker. After "Pan's Labyrinth," this is the movie to see this season.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

A period spectacle, steeped in awesome splendor and lethal palace intrigue, it climaxes in a stupendous battle scene and epic tragedy.

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

It's a lavish entertainment that revels in lurid colors and yet more lurid emotions.

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

Since his debut in 1987 with "Red Sorghum" Mr. Zhang has made more controlled films but never one that's more fun. With Curse of the Golden Flower he aims for Shakespeare and winds up with Jacqueline Susann. And a good thing too.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker

It's more theatrical pageant than action movie, with the showy but rudimentary martial-arts action coming off like just another ritual with the players going through the motions.

Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

Exhaustingly action-packed.