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The Emperor and the Assassin (Widescreen)

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$24.89 List: $29.95Save: $5.06 (17%)

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Description

    A lavishly produced historical drama from China, Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang/The Emperor and the Assassin tells the complex, multi-facetted story of the man who became the first Emperor of a unified China, another man who has sworn to kill him, and a woman who is loved by both men. Late in the Third Century B.C., when China was comprised of seven rival kingdoms, Ying Zheng (Li Xuejian) was the leader of Qin. Ying Zheng had a dream in which he joined together the seven kingdoms into a single utopian state, and taking this as a mandate from God, he invaded the nearby state of Han as the first step toward this goal. However, not everyone in the neighboring states was happy with Ying Zheng's crusade, which seemed to indicate a lengthy war with many casualties. Lady Zhao (Gong Li), Ying's lover, devised a scheme to help Ying Zheng take over the nearby and uncooperative state of Yan; she fabricated a fake assassination plot against him, and framed the leader of Yan, once Ying Zheng's childhood friend, as the man behind the murderous plot. However, Lady Zhao did not choose the would-be assassin wisely; while Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi) loved her and was willing to do her bidding, Jing Ke's previous assassination assignment caused the unintended death of an innocent blind girl, which left him full of regret and a bit unstable. When Jing Ke learned a closely guarded secret about Ying Zheng's past, he became blindly determined to kill the would-be emperor, whatever the cost. Produced on a lavish budget by Chinese standards (15 million), Jing Ke Ci Qin Wang/The Emperor and the Assassin was directed by Chen Kaige, best known to Western audiences for the international success Farewell My Concubine. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Features

Awards

    Awards: Cannes Film Festival Film Festival (1)

Additional Information

  • DPCI: 246-00-1660
  • ASIN: B002HMJWH6
  • Catalog #: 11324042
  • Item can not be gift wrapped.

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Working with by far his largest budget to date, Chinese master Chen Kaige orchestrates an epic -- and epically melodramatic -- reproduction of the bloody unification of China in The Emperor and the Assassin. From the first moments, with the massive title cards bearing down on the massive battlefields, everything about this film is big. Yet it's Chen's trademark skill that he can focus down to the minute emotional nuances of his characters, allowing the big and the small to exist harmoniously in the same material. It's also pretty impressive that he can maintain a sense of suspense, especially when the outcome of the central narrative is known to all students of Chinese history. Li Xuejian portrays the emperor as a man occasionally conflicted about what he must do, but he also ends up with so much blood on his hands, tempered by so little pity, that viewers almost require his eventual destruction as a precondition for their catharsis. The fact that it's not as simple as that doesn't diminish the experience of watching the climax. Chen has gone to great lengths in the decorating of these sets and the recreation of this era, but still has plenty left for a juicy and interwoven political narrative. Certain revelations verge on the stuff of soap opera, but Chen embraces their operatic side, rather than their soapy side. The soul of the movie is Gong Li's Lady Zhao, forced to confront what she's refused to acknowledge her entire life, and Zhang Fengyi's weary assassin, as doomed by his prior choices as by anything that lies ahead of him. The Emperor and the Assassin leaves the melancholy impression that even virtuous actions carry heavy costs, and that the eventual verdicts of history are of little consolation in the present. Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide