Curse of the Golden Flower makeup

FOTD

Jun 23

I woke up at 2am today and decided to watch a movie until I felt sleepy again. I'm into period romance dramas these days, so I decided on Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) starring Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li. Other than the gripping, operatic story, I loved the movie for its moving visual landscape, the costumes, and of course, the makeup!

I first watched Gong Li as the anti-hero in Memoirs of a Geisha - loved her there, and in fact I'm watching it again soon just to see her. In Curse of the Golden Flower, Gong Li cuts a beautiful, regal, and cruel figure in her role as the Empress of China during the Tang Dynasty. She is always dressed in exquisite silks and heavy, rustling robes with embellishments that tinkle as she moves. Her makeup is perfect, with a dewy, flawless face, angled eyeshadows, and full lips with gold dust.

Here are her best looks! Actually, I just failed to include two (one almost bare-faced and another in lilac makeup) because they weren't as striking as these.

This is her first look. She sports gold eyeshadow on the inner lid, with a plummy, slightly purple eyeshadow that goes up on her outer lid. Her eyes are lightly lined with a bit of mascara. The lips are a plum shade with gold dust patted onto the bottom.

This isn't really makeup, but the nail extensions! Are awesome.

For this scene, the Empress wears gold (you'll see a lot of gold in all her looks) with bronze eyeshadow and lipstick. She looks like the sun!

The color story here is a rusty blood red. Once again, she has gold eyeshadow on the inner half of her lid, then she has a shimmery rust eyeshadow on the outer half. Her lips are a muted blood red.

This look is probably the most wearable! She has a satin, almost matte pale gold eyeshadow, mascara, and an MLBB lipstick. Her cheeks are slightly contoured.

This is her final look as she prepares for the showdown. This is her fiercest yet - gold and brown eyeshadow, sky-high lashes, cat eyeliner, heavily contoured cheeks, bright red lipstick, and of course, the gold dust! This is pretty easy to replicate with the basic makeup colors you have.