A Political Movie, In Fact

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2005)

This movie which has a historical context may be difficult to understand if you do not know the details regarding this time in Chinese history. You may be astounded by the scenery, the music and the martial arts. However, this movie, as pretty as it looks, is a piece of work which delivers a secret political message which happened not to be my favorite one.
This king in the movie, Emperior Qin, was one of the most ruthless governors in Chinese history. He conquered other kingdoms and united China not in a merciful way but as barbaric as he could. After he united the Chinese territory, he killed many intellectuals, collected and burned books and applied the cruelest laws upon his people to take away their rights such as the freedom of speech (if the Chinese people have any right now) and freedom of mobilization. The period under his governing was a dark age and his empire collapsed right after he died mostly because of his brutal governing.
In this movie, the assassins all failed because "Nameless" could not kill the king, eventually because he came to believe that "To Unite the Country" is more important over a person's identity, nationality and suffering under the government of the worst leader. Associating that message with the communist dictatorship in China, you can see what the director intended to tell you. And in fact, it is why Chinese movies are usually under very tight scrutiny by Chinese Media Inspection system. A lot of movies that talked about human rights are being banned in China but this one was the government's baby.
I was a big fan of Yimou Zhang (the director) since he made "Hong Gao Liang" and really liked movies such as "To live", "Ju Dou" and even the "You Hua Hao Hao Shuo". But in recent years, his fame has apparently distanced him from the common life of the majority of Chinese people. His recent movies, as beautiful as they are, seem to have no soul to me.