I'm at a loss how to write a review of this movie. On one hand the technical aspects of the film is quite good, excellent in fact, especially considering the budget (it was the most expensive Chinese film ever made in its time). On the other hand the film strikes one as being overlong, bloated, stuffed with its own importance and muddled in its examination of history. Not to mention the "mannerist" (to borrow an adjective from British critic Tony Rayns) acting and the demented portrayal of Qin Shi Huang by the lead actor, Li Xuejian. Sadly, Li seems not to know where his performance is heading. Every other actor, including Zhang Fengyi, Wang Zhiwen and the gorgeous Gong Li, seems to be like mannequins attached on a string and jerked about by director Chen Kaige.It astounded me 12 years ago to see this movie, because Chen had a very high reputation then (he won the Palme d'Or for "Farewell My Concubine" and helmed two of the best Chinese movies ever made, "Yellow Earth" and "King of Children"). I found it then boring and unconvincing, with no new slant to common historiography. In fact, most of the actors seem to be acting in a mannerist theater which makes some of the performances insufferable. I revisited the movie 10 years later, only to find my earlier assessment holds.I was only convinced I was right after watching Chen Kaige's "The Promise". It seems that Chen has come to a point he is merely making a movie for the sake of doing one - and that he no longer has anything important or refreshing to say. Looking back, I would say the downward trend really started in "The Emperor and the Assassin". My 5 stars is for the technical aspects only, not for the directing or the performances.

The Qin king wants to conquer the other kingdoms to create one big empire that we now know as China. Firstly he is nobly trying to binding the country together, but as it proceeds he turns out quite mad. Power struggles, mad war and almost a complete annihilation of a people follows.Very impressing work, the editing packs in so much information and extraordinary photography in little time that you need to keep you're eyes peeled to follow whats going on.Chen Kaige is a masterful director, but he is not the best with directing actors. Except for wonderful Li Gong, none is exceptional, not to say they are bad of course. That they are not.Whereas Zhang Yimous 'Hero' was a wonderful tale, this is more faithful to actual history.

Director Zhang Yimou's Hero is playing around the country to widespread critical acclaim. It is undoubtedly one of the most visually beautiful movies of our time. However, American audiences may not fully appreciate what message comes wrapped in this beautiful package.Hero rewrites history's judgment on the movie's central figure, the Emperor Qin – a ruthless leader who unified China through the most brutal means – by depicting him as a tough but benevolent and misunderstood monarch, in the process also changing the story of the failed assassination attempt on him as well.The historical Emperor Qin was known for his cruelty. The movie does refer to his practice of slaughtering entire villages. It is silent about the tortures he employed, the draconian legal code that involved the cutting off of limbs, his burning of books and suppression of schools of thought, or such incidents as the burying alive of hundreds of scholars who had objected to his rule.The reason for the differences between the historical Emperor Qin and the movie's retelling may be found in the needs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).Even before unifying China, the then-King of Qin was hated and feared by both rivals and subjects alike. The neighboring state of Yan (replaced with "Zhao" in the movie) knew that the state of Qin aimed eventually to attack. Officials in the Yan kingdom hired an assassin to kill the King of Qin and help them escape imminent defeat. Jing Ke, the man selected for the job, had to find a method to bring himself close to the King to complete his mission. Pan Yuqi was a disgruntled Qin official who had fled to the state of Yan to escape from the King of Qin's tyrannical rule. He so hated the King of Qin that he offered to allow himself to be killed in order that Jing could gain access by bringing his head to the despot. Jing killed him and brought both Pan's head and a map of the state of Yan that the king coveted, hiding in it a dagger with which to assassinate the tyrant.The King of Qin indeed allowed Jing Ke in his presence, and as the king opened the map offered to him, the assassin deftly procured the knife hidden in the map scroll. Unfortunately, Jing's initial thrust was not strong enough, grazing but not wounding the king. The king was then able to unsheathe his sword and parry any of Jing's successive thrusts. The assassin had no choice but to hurl his weapon at the monarch, but missed. He was later executed.In Hero, the assassin (played by Jet Li) has the opportunity and the skill to dispatch the King, yet decides against it. After abandoning his decision to kill the king, he is executed, and then buried as a hero.The Jet Li character is called "Nameless." Nameless chooses loyalty, and his own death, after a long conversation with the King of Qin. The king asserts that Nameless's quest is only negative, he acts out of hatred and revenge. He reveals that he himself is misunderstood, that the king's strength is used for the sake of unifying a great Chinese nation, a nation that will comprise "everything under heaven" (this crucial phrase was translated in English as "our land").Like the Emperor Qin, Mao Zedong, upon winning the civil war against Chiang Kai Sheik, unified China. Mao was an open admirer of the Qin Emperor. This often-hated emperor came to be seen as a symbol for the Communist Party.Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the Chinese Communist Party has used China's state controlled media to make the claim that the Communist Party exists for the sake of a great and unified China. Love of China and love of the Party are conflated, and love of China is taught to be of supreme importance.Zhang's movie fits the CCP script very neatly. It appropriates China's history, its founding moment, the unification by the Emperor Qin, and uses that history to teach the very same lessons that CCP has taught: the need to give up individual claims (what we today call rights) for the sake of a great and powerful China under the rule of a strong leader (the CCP).The leaders of the CCP wish the viewers of the movie to forget some other parallels with the Emperor of Qin. Similar to the Qin Emperor, the People's Republic of China is one of the most brutal and reviled governments in the world. Just as the Emperor of Qin suppressed Confucianism and persecuted those who objected to his rule, the CCP persecutes and tortures all of those with views and beliefs differing from the Party, including Falun Gong practitioners, house Christians, Uigher Muslims, union organizers, and democracy activists.

Kaige Chen's epic co-incidentally covers much of the same historical period as Xiaowen Zhou's Qin Song /Emperor's Shadow (1996) but, despite the greater length and presumably larger budget, it emerges as the lesser of the two epics. Both films concentrate on the first unification of China by the ruthless and troubled King of Qin and feature a conspicuous branding of a female lead. But whereas Emperor's Shadow gives the whole process an obsessive gravitas, despite Kaige Chen's best efforts (and he manages some beautiful looking compositions) the present production is more diffuse and, to me anyway, was on a different level. The earlier film is more powerful (there is nothing as striking as the Tarkovsky-like 'sacrifice of the bells' moment, which is at the start of Qin Song, for instance) even though Kaige Chen has the full advantage of some marvellous locations. The portrait of the Qin King is also less impressive here. Fengyi Zhan simply has far less of a cruel, regal presence in the role than does Wen Jiang, and there is nothing like the overpowering relationship between the Emperor-to-be and his 'soulmate' - be it assassin or musician - that exists in the earlier work holding the long narrative together. Having said that, there is much well mounted angst and drama as the king inevitably exploits many of him around him, some grand battle scenes, and a lot else to enjoy. I would also add Musa to the list of worth-seeing Asian epics which are currently available on cheap import DVDs. This current title has the best picture with none of the occasionally distracting compression problems of the the others (the film is on a 2 sided disk).