Movie is best enjoyed by a blindly patriotic Chinese person.

Rating: 5/10 (11 March 2005)

This movie had several flaws. One was that the fight scenes are excessive and not that well done because the fighters purposely miss attacking their opponents when they are open. They are more like dances, but do not strike that fine balance between dancing and fighting that the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fight scenes did. Another major annoyance is the constant sad music and clothes flapping in the wind. Yes it is beautiful and inspiring at first, but gets tiring quickly. Simply put, this movie's action scenes and drama are overblown. However, I can live with pretentiousness. What sinks this movie for me is the ending, as well as the characterisation of the King of Qin.
Now some will accuse me of being hard on a movie that is clearly fictional, but these people should remember the movie is based on real world events. What gets me is that the emperor is portrayed as this noble, wise man who is brutal but only for the greater good. I don't know Chinese history very well, but I am almost certain the real King of Qin was not like that. He was probably a brutal and power-hungry tyrant just like the other conquerors of history. Of course the further back these events happened, the less brutal they seem and the more they get romanticised. We should not fall for it. To illustrate the point, just imagine a movie made about Stalin in 50 years or so portraying him as a wise and noble man who had to kill millions of Russians and Ukrainians for the greater good of industrialising the Soviet Union and subsequently winning the Second World War (the Soviet Union won most of the war). Would such a movie not want to make you puke? A similar argument is made at the end of this movie: that the King of Qin united China, thus saving it from conquering hordes that China could have never resisted if divided. To me it does not excuse this vulgar propaganda.
Like another reviewer wrote, I bet the Chinese commissars are very happy about this movie. It probably supports their rationalisations that their brutal suppression of dissidents is for the greater good of China.
For all you patriotic viewers (any of you, whether Chinese, American, British...), I urge you to reconsider your devotion to the state. Things are almost never as simple as you think.
By the way, my user name has no relevance to my politics whatsoever. I have just found the name Khrushchev to be funny ever since I watched a certain Family Guy episode.