THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This is unlike any other film you
have seen from People's Republic of China. THE
EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN is an action film that has
real historical sweep. It features spectacular
battle scenes and an intricate and engaging plot.
The story is of how the first emperor of China came
to unify China and of his relationship with his
childhood friend and now lover, played by Gong Li.
Rating: 8 (0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
From the beginnings of film one of the highest goals of cinema has been to transport the viewer in space and time to see something he would never be able to see otherwise. I suppose that might be why most of my favorite films are either fantasy films or historical--the two genres are linked. To some extent both appeal to the same kind of people. And of particular interest are the great spectacular scenes of history involving thousands of people: the exodus from Egypt, the Oklahoma land rush, the Zulus besieging Rorkes Drift, the Battle of Austerlitz, that sort of thing. The noblest goal of cinema is to act as a time machine to make us eyewitnesses to those events of world history really worth seeing.
But film is a business and one has to be able to shoot epic scenes where extras will work for an affordable amount. One place where labor is cheap is in heavily-populated China. Yet until now Chinese historical films have been very personal films shot in medium close-up. The sweeping events of Chinese history have been too expensive to film, so generally have never been used as the subject of films.
It has been foreign filmmakers who have recognized that inexpensive labor in China give the potential for filming the huge scenes in Chinese history. In 1987 Steven Spielberg filmed the rout of Shanghai for EMPIRE OF THE SUN and Bernardo Bertolucci filmed the grandeur of the Forbidden City for THE LAST EMPEROR. At long last the Chinese themselves, in conjunction with French and Japanese investors, have seen the potential they have to paint history on the grand scale. And if epic history could be made about the last Emperor, what better choice could there be than telling the story of the first Emperor? That would be Ying Zheng, one of history's true larger than life characters. At age 13 he inherited control of the Kingdom of Qin. This was 245 B.C.E., about the same time Hannibal was born. He took seven warring kingdoms and forged them into a single empire. Though his reign was a short one he was responsible for the two greatest artifacts of Chinese history, the Great Wall of China and the huge terra cotta army of soldiers he had buried with him to protect him in the next life. He also burned all but the most innocuous of books to have greater control of his subjects' minds and so that Chinese history would start with him.
In THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN, Ying Zheng (played by Li Xuejian) comes to power as a boy of thirteen in 245 B.C.E. with a dream of unifying the seven warring kingdoms under one benevolent emperor. [Actually historical opinion is that he inherited rather than originated the dream and that all the conquering but a few mop-up operations had been done by his predecessors.] His childhood sweetheart, now his concubine, Lady Zhao (Gong Li) joins him to aid him. Ying Zheng wants to conquer the Kingdom of Yan without appearing to be the aggressor. Lady Zhao has a plan to get them to make the first move. She will appear to be a prisoner escaped from Ying Zhang fleeing to Yan. There she will convince them to send an assassin to attempt to kill Ying Zhang. But the King will be ready, kill the assassin, and use the incident as an excuse to destroy Yan.
The story centers on the story Ying Zheng (whom we should know will succeed in the end if we are up on our history) and on his assassin Zhang Fengyi as Jing Ke. Each is sympathetic is his own way. Ying Zheng wants to end 550 years of warfare and create an empire he expects to run for the good of his people "with grain growing everywhere." Jing Ke was a great assassin, now guilt-ridden over the deaths he has caused. He wants nothing to do with killing again, but is being manipulated for another job. The style is a real change of pace for director Chen Kaige who experiments with bits of style borrowed from samurai films, Hong Kong action film, Japanese historical epics, and Italian Westerns, bringing them all into perhaps the most entertaining film to come from the People's Republic of China. Not all the battle scenes are as exciting as they might have been staged, but considering the source they always beat the expectation.
Clearly there is much more of a "give the public what it wants" attitude than we have seen previously coming from the PRC. If this film is successful and that attitude catches on, it can only be healthy for the Chinese film industry. This is a film gives the audience a history lesson and has them enjoy getting it. The one problem being that with most of the rest of the world knowing so little Asian history, they probably will not know where fact leaves off and fiction begins in this story.
Films from China are usually edifying experiences. For once we have one that is also fun. I rate THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN 8 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper
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