And if the Communist's don't like it, it must be bad

The Chinese Communist Party didn't like Zhang Yimou's latest:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's top Communist Party training academy has slammed Oscar-nominated director Zhang Yimou's latest film "Curse of the Golden Flower" as the latest in a line of bloodthirsty blockbusters smearing modern Chinese cinema.

A commentary in the "Study Times", the Chinese Communist Party School's official mouthpiece, complained that Chinese directors were deluding themselves that big-budget violent movies would lead to Academy Awards.

"Fine art is not built on money. Good movies are not based on banquets of glitzy scenes and effects, and less so when violence and sex are involved," the editorial said.

I agree with them: Curse of the Golden Flower was crap, and none of the violence or timid sex made up for it -- I haven't walked out of a film less impressed with a director in a long time.

Funny thing though -- Zhang Yimou's previous films include Hero, which was just as bloody and timidly sexual as Curse, if not more so. Except that the totally unmissable message of Hero was that sometimes dictators do horrible things to preserve social order and national greatness, and we should all just accept that and not raise a ruckus when they do.

Shorter Hero: Thank you sir! May I have another!

And yet somehow Beijing didn't complain about the sex and violence in Hero. Wonder why...