The Emperor's Shadow

Starring:Wen Jiang, You Ge, Qing Xu
Director: Xiaowen Zhou
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

Description

The Emperor's Shadow is a majestic tour-de-force that captures both the epic sweep of the formation of China's first ruling dynasty and the poignant struggle of star-crossed lovers against the cold hand of tradition and the relentless march of history.

Customer Reviews:

The visible analogies !.......2007-01-06

Third Century B.C. The First Emperor of China tries to unite his squabbling realm from a childhood friend and now a revered musician. What this powerful picture shows us is the impressive psychological insight, the political intrigues, the lavish mass spectacle, that in major or minor degree seem so similar to our actual political regimes, which clearly shows the level of advance we have reached in this sense.

Impressive locations and sumptuous photography make of this film an obligated reference.

Didn't Like It.......2005-01-20

Technically this is a very good film; but, it doesn't have the rich colors and exquisite cinematography that I've come to expect from Chinese art films such as Raise the Red Lantern, Farewell My Concubine, Flowers of Shanghai etc. The flavor is, in my limited experience, very Japanese and the mood of the film reminded me of "Ran" - very stark, cold, and brutal.

Decent...........2004-07-04

This film was overall decent and worth seeing if you've got limited access to Chinese historical films.

There were a lot of things in the movie that just plain did not make sense (and these things had nothing to do with translation). A lot of things just are not explained whatsoever. The movie starts out with Gao Jianli's mother breastfeeding both Gao Jianli and Ying Zheng. No information whatsoever as to how on earth Ying Zheng got from his probable birthplace in modern-day Shaanxi province all the way to the kingdom of Yan, a few hundred miles away, in the present-day areas of Hebei and Liaoning provinces, Beijing and Tianjin. The movie goes forward about 12 years to Gao Jianli just hanging around a prison courtyard playing the guqin.........I know it was a period of war and conquests but what on EARTH is this kid doing hanging around a jailyard?! And then a whole bunch of people are brought in and proclaimed as Qin captives to be executed. Among them (what a coincidence!), and positioned for execution right next to Gao Jianli (what a coincidence again!) playin' Jailyard Guqin, is Ying Zheng! Now hang on a second.....two minutes ago it looked as if Ying Zheng had been raised and maybe born in Yan, but here he is being hauled in with these other people from hundreds of miles away.

There are countless other things in the movie that are along the same lines - bizarre happenings that are totally unexplained and you can't necessarily figure out, even if you have (like myself) a good knowledge of Chinese history.

While the guqin music in the movie is nice (although a little redundant), the scored music in this movie is horrendous. Zhao Jiping usually is very tasteful with his usage of music in film, but this is an exception for sure. The authenticity of the setting, both in time and location, is ruined by the scored music, which consists of totally Western-style melodramatic orchestra+chorus for the most part. I love how when the army sings the Qin anthem (totally Western sounding) they're all Western operatic baritones!!!!!!! GIVE ME A BREAK! I know it's supposed to be this grandiose epic movie, but at least try to be real. This is the sort of stuff that you'd see in an old American movie from the 40's and 50's like Spartacus or The Ten Commandments where a group of supposedly average people open their mouths to sing a song and out comes Joan Sutherland and Kurt Moll. One reviewer said (in other words) that the orchestration helps in enhancing the magnitude and large scale of events going on. You can use Chinese music in the exact same way. What was Zhao thinking? Totally cheesy, unrealistic, and melodramatic as hell.

I do have to point out that they got authenticity in the areas of costume and props, but the music is just horrible.

Also, I speak Mandarin, and some of the translations are reallllllly bad. And speaking of Mandarin, I think that a little clarification on correct spelling with Pinyin (romanized Chinese) is in order for some of the previous reviewers. The guy's name was Ying Zheng. Ching is an outdated or Taiwanese way of spelling either Jing or Qing in Mandarin (qing if you forgot the apostrophe between the ch and the i). The kingdom in which Ying Zheng was king and where he later proclaimed himself the first emperor is called Qin. Note, it is not called QinG (or Ching/Ch'ing for our apparently Taiwanese reviewers) The first emperor of Qin is correctly written: Qin Shi Huangdi. Sorry, but I just can't handle these butcherings of Chinese spellings.

A good movie if you want to learn a little about Chinese history, as it portrays Ying Zheng as who he most likely really was: a ruthless emperor who was willing to stop at nothing and kill thousands upon thousands in order to unite the Warring States.

Overlooked epic.......2004-06-27

When this movie was made in '96, it was the most expensive ever attempted in China, and it certainly shows on screen. With a cast of thousands, a powerful score and sweeping scenery, the effect is truly breathtaking.

It is essentially an allegorical tale about the power of the state and its relationship with intellectuals and artists. Much of the drama and characterisations are highly symbolic, with Jiang Wen and Ge You acting opposite each other as polar forces. As such the characters of Ying Zheng and Gao Jianli are highly idealised and not very convincing.

Zhou Xiaowen has also made a point of departing quite far from history to create this film.

The Emperor's Shadow.......2004-01-05

Save your money. Subtitles ruined what would otherwise be a "half" decent movie. With today's technology you would think they would have released an English version of this movie for North America.

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