Curse of the Golden Flower

Cast
Chow Yun-Fat - Emperor Ping
Gong Li - Empress Liang
Liu Ye - Crown Prince Wan
Jay Chou - Prince Jai
Qin Junjie - Prince Yu
Ni Dahong - The Imperial Doctor
Chen Jin - Wife of the doctor
Li Man - Jiang Chan (daughter of the doctor)

Name
The title of the movie is taken from the last line of a Tang dynasty poem attributed to the rebel leader Huang Chao, "On the Chrysanthemum, after failing the Imperial Examination" or simply "Chrysanthemum":
“
When autumn comes on Double Ninth Festival, / my flower [the chrysanthemum] will bloom and all others perish. / When the sky-reaching fragrance [of the chrysanthemum] permeates Chang'an, / the whole city will be clothed in golden armour.
”
Due to the film's high profile while it was still in production, its title, which can be literally translated as "The Whole City is Clothed in Golden Armor", became a colorful metaphor for the spring 2006 sandstorms in Beijing and the term "golden armor" has since become a metaphor for sandstorms among the locals.

Plot

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play Thunderstorm (pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the imperial court of the Later Tang Dynasty, which was during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. Emperor Ping is a man of humble origins and strong ambition, having risen to the throne from the lowly rank of captain.

He abandoned his first wife to marry the Princess of Liang, who is now his Empress Phoenix. The Emperor does not love his second wife or her often sour mood; he blames the latter on an illness, for which he has forced her to take medicine of his own concoction every two hours for the past ten years.

Empress Phoenix has been outwardly obedient throughout the marriage and her husband's treatment, but has grown suspicious of the medicine in the recent span of ten days. Her submissiveness also conceals the fact that she and Crown Prince Wan, the Emperor's son from his previous wife, have engaged in an illicit affair for three years.

The status quo is broken, however, when Wan reveals to the Empress his guilt about the affair and then ends it against her wishes. Part of his motivation is a second secret relationship, held with Jiang Chan the daughter of the Imperial Doctor. Wan's overriding desire is to escape the palace, which he has never left, and thereby see the outside world with Chan.
Prince Jai, the middle son and eldest son of the Empress, has been leading the Emperor Ping's army at the kingdom's borders for three years. The palace has prepared a massive welcoming ceremony for the returning prince on the eve of the Chrysanthemum Festival, but the Emperor cancels them at the last moment to meet his son at a nearby inn where Jai has been instructed to wait.

There, the Emperor duels his son as an act of dominance, after which he warns Jai never to repeat a previous, unspecified mistake, emphasizing that everything Jai receives comes by the will of the Emperor and attempting to take anything from the Emperor by force is doomed to failure.

Jai then returns to the palace and visits with his mother, who is feverishly embroidering chrysanthemums for the upcoming festival. While she is embroidering she is struck still for a moment, possibly in pain, and collapses. She recovers quickly but Jai begins to worry about her.