The Emperor and the assassin

The most expensive film produced in China at its date of production, this historical epic is based on the event of the forced unification of China in the third century. By 221 BC, after centuries of civil war, seven kingdoms were dominant in China. At this time the ruler of the kingdom of Qin, Ying Zheng (Li Xuejian), raised to believe he had an ancestral duty to unify all of China, undertook a brutal conquest to achieve his goal, thus becoming the country’s first emperor. In this interpretation Zheng is aided in his quest by his lover, Lady Zhao (Gong Li), who devises a fake assassination plot to justify an invasion of the neighboring kingdom of Yan, enlisting the help of Yan assassin Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi) who is trying to give up his bloody past. As the King becomes increasingly ruthless and bloodthirsty, Lady Zhao shifts her political and romantic allegiances to the assassin. Filled with the back-stabbing imperial politics, murderous betrayals, acts of cruelty and bloody mass slaughter usually associated with Shakespearean tragedy, the emotional impact and tension of the complex narrative is at times dwarfed by the elaborately staged, large-scale battle sequences and the visual grandeur of the landscape. Written by Chen Kaige and Wang Peigong. Photography, Zhao Fei, music, Zhao Jiping.