The Emperor and the Assassin (1998)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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.

Average attempt at a grand epic. Sadly the film is overly long, unnecessary slow, especially at the beginning & ending "chapters" of the film.The biggest disappointment of the film had to be the editing. It was quite poor in parts & if it was part of the "visual style" of the film, then it was totally unnecessary.That said still worth at least a look

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).

A very great movie.A big love story. Lots of sword fighting. Huge battle scenes. Heros and villains. Real history.Few in the West know much Chinese history. Chin Zchaundi founded China. The country is in fact named after him. Some are familiar with the terra cotta army recently unearthed. This is a historical epic of how he ended the Period of Contending States and unified China. He founded a dynasty that only last 14 years but it was immediately replaced by the Han dynasty that permanently defined Chinese civilization ever since.Chin (or the King of Zheng as he was known before he founded the empire)was roughly contemporaneous with Scipio, Hannibal, and Fabius in the West. The parallel Roman world dominance (West and East worlds) was achieved without a single towering personality like Chin. It would not be for another century before the West produced Caesar - the nearest comparable Western figure.Chin is shown very sympathetically here in the beginning but he develops over the course of the film into a ruthless despot. History only records the ruthless despot part but the sympathetic beginning leaves room for real character development over the course of this long film. The famous story about the meeting with the assassin is as true as any two thousand year old anecdote can be. Gong Li is lovely. She is the emotional core of the story. It all makes for great movie making.