Creepy film and creepy reviewers

Rating: 1/10 (4 July 2006)

There are things that people must understand when we look at a film like this - the historical background and its significance in its current political and cultural settings.
So first thing first - who is the King of Qin (later the Qin Emperor)? He was (and still is) a highly controversial character from over two thousands years ago, who is notable for unifying China but also someone vilified throughout Chinese history for his cruelty and brutality in the pursuit of his objective. He can be regarded as a the founder of the country called China (the English word "China" is often thought to be derived from the word "Qin"), but the dynasty he founded collapsed rapidly after his death due to widespread civil revolt as a result of the hatred for his regime.
What is his significance at present time in China? The Qin Emperor was hated throughout much of Chinese history, but attempts were made to rehabilitate his reputation in recent times, most notably by Chairman Mao during the 1970's. To the Chinese, historical justification of a political regime is important; and Mao, before his death, was concerned about his reputation after his death and made a conscious attempt to justify his totalitarian and brutal regime. Thus the Qin Emperor was praised for the destruction of division in favour of unification (note that this is the point made by the film), and that his brutality was justified as necessary in difficult times. In fact the criticism of him was that he wasn't "totalitaran" enough, perhaps in retrospect that is something that Mao was able to outdo the Qin Emperor. This image of the good dictatorship despite the great evils done is one that the current inheritor of Mao's China is keen to maintain.
The Qin Emperor is therefore not just an interesting historical figure, but someone who embodies the mindset of the ruling elite of present day China. And we can therefore understand this film in term of the political and cultural context of the current regime in China (the film has the full approval of the Government of PR China). It tells us that division means violence (therefore there can be no independent Tibet or Taiwan), and to ensure peace there has to be single dictatorship and state violence is necessary, furthermore individuals must be prepared to sacrifice themselves to achieve such end.
The easiest way for non-Chinese to understand this is to imagine of something that never happened - the unification of Europe by Nazi Germany (this is not an unreasonable comparison as the Qin Emperor had in China before Mao's revisionism about the same reputation as Hitler). To ensure peace in Europe, you should argue that there must be no separate nation states in Europe, and brutality is necessary to ensure peace. Peace is the be all and end all, even if as can see that in fact there has been relative peace in Western Europe after the Second World War with the separate nation states still intact.
And from this we can see from this how creepy some of the reviewers are. One guy from Germany argued that we should forget about the politics and just concentrate on the beauty of the film. Just imagine saying that about Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph des Willens", strange that it should come from a German. One guy argued that it is about peace, and unification is necessary to ensure it. But we can see that this is a completely bogus argument when we look at history (unified Qin collapsed in violence quickly, while Europe remains in relative peace as separate nation states). One guy from the US argued that, unlike the self-centredness of Western culture, people in Chinese expect to make sacrifice for the greater good. Well, tell that to the Chinese people living in US that they should be prepared to sacrifice their human rights for the good of the US government and see how far you will get.
Other reviewers stated that the film is not totally sympathetic to the Qin Emperor as it showed him losing control (he cannot pardon Nameless, and must execute Nameless because his bureaucrats think he must). This makes the message of the film even worse - you should sacrifice your life for a totalitarian state effectively ruled by faceless and heartless bureaucrats? I can't imagine anything worse.
It is, in all, a creepy film with a creepy message, supported by some creepy reviewers. Sad to see this listed among the top 250 films in IMDb.