WHY a beautiful movie with a STUPID message can't be a great movie.

Rating: 2/10 (2 September 2004)

This movie is visually beautiful indeed, but the story is just plainly stupid. Do not agree? Read on.
We have 6 very well-educated Asian people, all know this part of famous Chinese history more or less, watching this movie together. At the end, some feel so disappointed about the story, and the others, worse, felt so disgusted by its built-in political messages.
Praise its photography as you wish, but please don't tell me this is a great movie. A beautiful movie with a terrible message can't be a great movie. It simply is NOT.
Even with my high respect for Mr. Zhang's earlier works, I can't help but feel so disappointed with this overhyped film.

Warning: Spoiler ahead (The version I watched is the original Asian release issued in 2002, which is longer than this US version.)
1. Brief historic background
In this movie, the King of Qin state use his powerful troops mercilessly to invade the six other states in early China, and eventually conquered them all to form his Qin empire.
Historically, he was the first emperor to "unite" China. In reality, he was the cold-blooded tyrant who achieved his ambition with brutal force and at the cost of numberless people's lives and blood. One chinese legend stated that his troop was ordered to kill (bury alive) 400,000 surrendered soldiers from the neighbor state "Zhao" after one battle, just to crush the morale of other resisting forces. This is just one of countless example of what he did to "unite" China.
Due to his tyranny, people hated him so much, especially those from the six other conquered states. The great empire he spent his lifetime to build only last for 15 years, one of the shortest in China's history. The empire soon turned into another chaotic battle field with all the uprising forces fighting against his heir, until another new dynasty (Han).
The most laughable part (and historically incorrect) in this movie is that, although the assassin have gone through so many years of preparation aiming to kill this brutal tyrant to save his own country and people, he was so [unbelievably] easily persuaded (or tricked) by this King to give up his life-long mission, even at the cost of his own life, and knowingly let this tyrant and his massive force finish crushing all other countries.
A graceful assassin? or an unbelievably stupid idiot? Of course the history ended with the King has his way and had all the people in China kneel before him. What a glorious story with a extremely stupid assassin.
2. The "message"? Is this really a propaganda film?
So the "message" of this movie: the best way for suffering people to end war is letting the powerful invading force finish their job, letting the brutal tyrant be the emperor, without resisting or trying to kill him, then we will all get peace and become one "united great country" ?
In short: Let the big bad guy have his way with us, and then we can all live peacefully afterward?
How intelligent and creative!!
If the message in this movie is so true, why should people fight in WW2? We should let Hitler conquer Europe and there will be no war over there after he finish all others, just a great "glorious" NAZI empire?? We should let Japanese conquer the East Asia (including China) so there will be no more fighting and killing over there either???
This is exactly why some people in Asia call this movie a piece of communist propaganda. This is a good piece of work to teach the people to let their powerful (totalitarian or not) government have its way, no matter how bad or controling it is, so that there will be "stability" and a "glorious united country".
Now you know why Zhang Yi-Mou, whose earlier works were not really appreciated by the officials in China, was suddenly so well funded and supported by Beijing in making this movie.
Am I biased? Well, I guess so. I know so much about this part of Chinese history and also the connection between this film and the Chinese government, that I just can't pretend I am [objective] to call this movie a piece of "pure art".
This movie did not do too well in Asia. I am surprised it do quite well in the US. Funny.
Praise its photography as you wish, but please don't tell me this is a great movie. A beautiful movie with a terrible message can't be a great movie. It is NOT.
Sorry Mr. Zhang, I can only give you 3 stars out of 10 this time. Even with my respect for your earlier works, I can't help but feel so disgusted this time.
3 out of 10.