Realizing that his talent lies in choreographing complex action, the director fills the spaces with a plethora of battle scenes, each one generating enough energy to propel us through the gassy emotional interludes. In size and scope, The Emperor and the Assassin is a chip off of Kurosawa's Ran. Oversized characters clash on oversized sets. But in terms of tone, atmosphere, and the lusty enthusiasm with which it recreates palatial excess, it more closely resembles Patrice Chereau's La Reine Margot . Both indulge in Byronic gestures of cinematic grandure.
Nothing escapes the set decorator's eye.
Even the characters look like expensive props. Burdened by unwieldly robes and ghastly head gear, royalty conspires against royalty in ultra-violent versions of Risk. The ensuing carnage can be beautiful like a painting by Delacroix, painstakingly detailed yet overflowing with movement. What comments on power, love and regret The Emperor and the Assassin hoped to make are lost in the surfeit of material showmanship. The human relationships flail in the wind, their loose ends failing to connect.