Plot summary

The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play Thunderstorm ( pinyin: Lei Yu), but is set in the royal court of the later Tang dynasty in ancient China.On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, golden chrysanthemum flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) returns from his various military campaigns with his second son and general, Prince Jai (Jay Chou). It is hinted during their brief, but intense, sparring session that Jai has grown resentful of his father and his controlling ways. However, the Emperor warns his son of his own past mistakes and tells him not to take by force what is not given to him. The pretext of the Emperor's return is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but given the chilled relations between the Emperor and the ailing Empress (Gong Li), this seems disingenuous. For three years, the Empress and Crown Prince Wan (Ye Liu), her stepson, have had an illicit liaison. However, Prince Wan no longer finds himself reciprocal of her advances and, feeling trapped, dreams of exploring the world outside the palace with his secret lover, Jiang Chan (link=Man Li), the Imperial Doctor's daughter. Meanwhile, Prince Jai, a faithful son to his mother, grows curious and then worried over the Empress's health and her abnormal obsession with golden chrysanthemums. Wan acknowledges Jai's concerns, but the younger son, Yu seems oblivious to the matter and does not question it further.The family reunites within the chrysanthemum terrace where Wan's request to explore the frontier is denied by the emperor, along with Yu's request to command the imperial guard. It is decided that Jai will take the latter responsibility. No one cares or really sees the youngest son Yu, and he is quietly dismissed. It is then revealed that the Empress had failed to take her full dose of medicine for her anemia at the required hour. The Emperor commands she take the full dose. The Empress refuses, knowing that something is not right. The Emperor then commands his sons to make her take her dose, at which point she begrudgingly acquiesces. At this point, Jai also begins to sense that something is afoot.For the past ten days, the Imperial Physician, Jiang Yiru (Dahong Ni) and his daughter Jiang Chan have been tasked by the Emperor to secretly add small amounts of poison into the Empress' medicine that she takes one dose of every two hours. The result would leave the Empress in an eventual state of insanity. Having discovered this plot thanks to the investigations of a hired woman-in-black, the Empress concludes that her husband has grown tired of her strong and independent character. The Empress continues to embroider golden chrysanthemums and summons her son, Prince Jai. She reveals his father's plot against her and asks for his participation in her own plan for revenge. Jai hesitates, feeling conflicted between his love for his mother and his loyalty to his father. He says that it would be difficult for him to confront the Emperor with sword and armor, but after seeing his mother take a poisoned dose before him, he agrees.Meanwhile, the woman-in-black is captured by Prince Wan and taken to the Emperor. She is revealed to be she Jiang Shi (Jin Chen), Jiang Yiru's wife and Jiang Chan's mother. The Emperor relinquishes custody of Shi to her husband and relocates the doctor's family to a remote area outside the palace. Before they leave, Prince Wan approaches Chan who provides him with information that leads him to suspect the Empress' plans. He rushes back inside the palace and confronts the Empress, claiming that everyone will blame him should there be rebellion. The Empress, already in the throes of madness, bluntly claims she only wants Wan to die so she can continue her plans. In a panic, Wan stabs himself and the Empress is immediately contrite. She places the prince under care. The Emperor visits Wan soon after and comforts him, revealing that he was aware of his son's affair with the Empress, but is confident that it was she who seduced him.As the doctor's family is en route to their relocation in the mountains, they are attacked by mysterious assassins-in-black and Jiang Yiru is killed. Chan and her mother escape back to the palace. Just as the festival is beginning, and the royal family is assembled together, Shi and Chan enter the palace and Shi confronts the Emperor, correctly suspicious that it was he who sent the assassins. Enraged, Shi mocks the Emperor, recalling a previous assassination attempt from which she escaped. It was the Imperial Doctor who found her and nursed her back to health, after which they were wed. Feeding upon the drama, the Empress then reveals to everyone that Shi was the Emperor's former lover, giving him reason to kill her after his marriage to the Empress, and is the birth mother of Prince Wan. This revelation sends ripples of shock through the family, especially Prince Wan and Chan who realize they are half siblings. Distraught and crazed, Chan runs screaming from the palace, her mother chasing close behind. Both are killed by the assassins initially sent after them.After the turmoil raised, and to everyone's astonishment, the young Prince Yu abruptly kills Prince Wan, and attempts to oblige the Emperor to abdicate the throne to him. He angrily reveals that he also learned of the Empress's plot including Prince Jai. Feeling that no one ever cared about him, he had to act in order to gain himself the throne. A small rebellious team of soldiers assembles behind him, but the Emperor's assassins easily eliminate Prince Yu's rebel force. The Emperor then lashes Yu to death. The Empress, caught in the clutches of madness, does not seem to notice the violence and walks off, consumed in her plan.As the Imperial Family continues its elaborate charade in a palatial setting, ten thousand golden-armored warriors, all wearing the embroidered flowers the Empress made, charge the palace led by Prince Jai. The Imperial banner set out by the Emperor, which provides a direct warning against Jai's advances, is promptly ignored. As they charge forward, the Emperor's personal assassins arrive to stop them. Although Prince Jai's men take many casualties, they manage to eliminate all of the assassins and move forward. As the golden-armored army marches into the Imperial Square, they are boxed in by moving walls operated by the Emperor's men, the Silver Armours. Prince Jai orders the army to charge forth, but they are cut down by thousands of arrows. Against a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms are trampled as blood spills across the Imperial Courtyard. Despite catastrophic losses, Prince Jai continues to fight in honor of his mother, but it is not until the Empress nods that the Prince surrenders. Afterwards, the survivors of the golden-armored army are gathered, bound, and executed on the Emperor's orders.After the battle, the courtyard is swiftly cleaned up as if the night's event had never transpired. The Emperor reveals to the Empress it was Prince Wan who informed him of their plot. The Empress simply states she had a feeling he would. The Emperor says that she has truly lost her mind to have continued such a redundant rebellion. Prince Jai is captured and the lords who assisted the Empress in building her army are executed. The Emperor brings his wife and bloodied son to the terrace for all the subjects to see. Despite having two sons dead, a mad wife, and a traitorous rebel for a son, the Emperor calmly reminds Jai that he was not to take what was not given to him. Jai acknowledges that he knew he would not win the battle, but his efforts were not for the throne; they were for his mother.Silently furious that his son's loyalty was usurped by his contemptuous wife, he orders Prince Jai to administer the Empress' poisoned medicine to her, in exchange for sparing his life. Prince Jai apologizes to his mother for his failure. The two share a tearful embrace and Jai kills himself by slitting his own throat. As his blood spills, droplets fall into the Empress' medicine. The Emperor pauses reaching for his food, silently shocked that his son would rather take his own life than betray his mother, but no words escape him. The Empress shakes, gripped by her madness and despair at losing everything she loved, appalled by the medicine which now contains her son's blood, and enraged at the fierce control maintained by her husband. She lets out a frantic shriek and slaps the plate holding the medicine out of the servant's hands. The liquid falls upon the wood of the dais which begins to rapidly dissolve from the medicine's acidity. It eats away at the engraved chrysanthemum, now symbolizing the foul corruption and madness that the festival has brought upon the city.