Understand a film, first understand the culture and history

Rating: 9/10 (5 January 2010)

Hi, guys, I am from China, and I have to say that you could only understand the storyline if you really understand the culture and history that the movie sits on.
For Hero, the movie, it is derived from an short record from one of our earliest chronicles. It was about 2250 years ago. At that time, China was composed of 7 major kingdoms that nominally subject to their leader: King of Zhou. King of Qin disposed of King of Zhou and then started his war to overwhelm other Kingdoms. It took him about 30 years to complete the plan.
The assassin hero-ed in this movie is derived from a real assassin sent by prince of Yan. He had a name rather than nameless. Yan was the last Kingdom remained independent at that time, so prince of Yan plot the whole deal: he negotiated with King of Qin and would like to buy a peace treaty by offering 15 major cities to the King. He send-ed the assassin as missioner along with the rolled maps of the cities, among which a dagger was hidden. The assassin should kill the King with the dagger while he rolled open the maps and introduced the cities to the King. It was a very good plot but finally failed for one of the bodyguard of the King took the thrust rather than the King. The assassin was killed by the King right after that. And Yan, the last kingdom then was taken by Qin. And the king of Qin finally was crowned to be Emperor.
Unfortunately, the King finally turned out to be a tyrant. He burned most of the books, buried scholars alive and built Great Wall by summoning 1.5 million men, using another 3 million men to build his tomb and palace.(Total population of China at that time was merely above 20 million) So his dynasty fell apart just 15 years after his death.
For the King of Qin was supposed to be a bad guy according to our history, so the assassin sent to kill him turned to be a good guy. I should say that the director rephrase the history and would like to talk about something different from our traditional perspective, but in China, we did not think the making a success, for no one would like a movie to sing high praise for a tyrant.
BTW: The Emperor also sent a general to the north frontier, beat-ed Huns tribes that harass his empire, those tribes were migrating to Europe in the next couple of hundred of years and finally nearly destroyed (West) Rome Empire under their intrepid leader: Atila - Whip of the God.