Review of The Emperor and the Assassin

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).