The lush, regal colors in “Curse of the Golden Flower,” Zhang Yimou’s new martial-arts melodrama, run like the kaleidoscopic drizzle off a melting sno-cone. Set in the Later Tang Dynasty of the 10th century, the tale of palace intrigue and incest almost drowns in opulent décor, brocaded robes, and gleaming swords. It’s a film for anyone who somehow found the color-guard dazzle of the Chinese director’s earlier period epic, “Hero,” not bold enough.

Mr. Yimou’s trick with “Hero” (and 2004’s “House of Flying Daggers”) was to make over the scrappy wuxia film of old with a sumptuous aesthetic, modulated storytelling, and top-notch talent. “Curse of the Golden Flower” is another such attempt, starring the redoubtable team of Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat as an Empress and Emperor embroiled in mutual treachery and many layers of fabric.

The premise and mood is soap opera Shakespeare, with a taste of Shaw Brothers: aristocratic hysteria and deception over sex and succession. The Empress has been sleeping with her stepson, the Crown Prince (Liu Ye), but the meek youth wants out. His brother, the second in line (Jay Chou), returns from battle and poses a threat with his golden-boy competence. Meanwhile, the Emperor has been giving his wife medicine that makes her shake and glare like an enraged diva, which is Ms. Li’s demeanor for most of the film anyway.

The royal doctor’s scar-faced wife has something urgent to say about this, as does his daughter, the Crown Prince’s secret love, but the Emperor ships them off to a province. At the palace, there is much prowling of corridors and trembling of lips in close-up. Except for a welcome-home mock fight between father and son, rendered in sensual sparks of clashing armor, the movie’s first half feels room-bound and plotted like a television series.

When the Emperor and the Empress set in motion their separate revenge plans — and warriors — the film erupts with whirling action set pieces and notso-shocking disclosures. He sends a whispery, high-flying cloud of ninjas to dispatch the royal doctor’s wife. She rolls out a massive armed conspiracy during the upcoming Chong Yang festival, celebrated with chrysanthemums.

When the story’s action opens up, it should be the movie’s bread and butter, since, heaven knows, the uneven acting isn’t. But Mr. Yimou’s direction no longer looks backward to the control he displayed in the 1990’s art-house triumphs that first brought him international renown (“Raise the Red Lantern,” “Ju Dou”). Instead, a sealed-off, compartmentalized quality to the shots and the storytelling point to Mr. Yimou’s more current projects: a gig as director of an opera for the Met in New York, and his recent commission to direct the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

These are arias performed with blades (and, in one case bordering on camp, a belt), and they do jolt one awake, especially when Mr. Chow springs to action like a crafty lion finally roused. But when the Empress’s raising of an army shifts the stage to the vast courtyard of the palace, the uniform mass of warriors resembles a CGI-enhanced rally. The replica of the Forbidden City feels studio bound, and under Mr. Yimou’s swooping camera, the battles and the festival seem to take place in a world that ends abruptly at the backdrop horizons.

Another unwelcome effect of the stadium-like setting and the faceless uniformity of the marching soldiers is a fascistic flavor, infused with the pageantry and anticipation of the chrysanthemum festival. You could probably cobble together a political critique out of the movie’s unappealingly brutal internecine conflict. Indeed, many blasted “Hero” as a nationalist allegory, and said even worse about Mr. Yimou’s cordial relations with his government. But really it’s all just numbing, an exponential expansion of the movie’s earliest scenes, where squads of palace servants dress in drum-beat unison. Why do anything with 15 people when 1,500 will do?

Of the actors (besides the callow supporting players), Hong Kong action legend Mr. Chow certainly looks like he thinks it’s good to be the king, but only Ms. Li has the presence and focus to break out. In the past few years she has specialized in films that set her off — steely, coolly placid, sultry like a quickening fever — against attempts at rapturous excess: “Miami Vice,” “2046,” and “Memoirs of a Geisha.” “Curse of the Golden Flower” is not exactly a garden where characters grow, but Ms. Li expresses both the righteous rage and essential powerlessness as the Emperor’s wife.

At the end, festival fireworks explode over the palace, feeling a bit self-congratulatory and insistent. Mr. Yimou knows enough to end on a big closer, and the screen fades out on a final bloodspatter flourish on the royal pavilion raised high above the palace court. Here’s hoping that the director, whose last film, “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles,” was small but satisfying, comes back down to earth soon.