The Emperor and the Assassin

Although Chen Kaige's last two films, "Farewell, My Concubine" and "Temptress Moon," dealt with intimate psychological issues against (different) historical backdrops, you can tell from the first bone-rattling thump of a gigantic drum and the subsequent cavalry charge what Kaige had brought us in "The Emperor and the Assassin." What we have here is nothing less than a sprawling, brutal drama of conquest, sacrifice, heroism, madness and desperation. Kaige brings us an emperor hell-bent on unity at any cost, a deadly retired assassin, the beautiful woman who left one for the other, and thousands of armored extras slaughtering each other in his tale of King Ying Zheng of the Qin and his efforts to unify the Six Kingdoms into one realm. The unstintingly graphic violent content shocks and dismays just as it needs to, but Kaige and his skilled cast plumb the psychological depths of the complex characters to give the movie pathos as well as bloodshed. What we end up with is an awesomely powerful film.

Like all great war movies, "The Emperor and the Assassin" has an exceptionally virile cast. Zhang Fengyi's performance as phenomenally lethal yet remorseful hired sword Jing Ke, who is called out of retirement to become the second part of the title of this movie, deserves a place among the great phenomenally lethal yet remorseful assassins in cinema history. Besides investing his character with depth, using his characterful face and husky voice to their best effect, he also invests his character with exceptional coolness, such that it is almost impossible not to root for him to some degree. (If tiny golden bells tied into the braids of one's hair do not become a fad in the next six months, it will be a crying shame.) Gong Li as Lady Zhao has the handicap in the virility department of being female, but she makes up for it by volunteering for a painful branding and acting as a double agent to advance an intricate plot that ends up driving the movie to its dreadful conclusion. Not that there needs to be a reason to have someone as gorgeous as Li in the film, of course. (Probably the funniest moment in the film is when Li, surrounded by a retinue of groomers and bathed by Kaige in soft, flattering purple light, asks said retinue "Is my face beautiful?" No one who looks that good should need to ask.)

But the biggest burden, performance-wise, falls on Li Xuejian's shoulders, and he surprisingly manages to make King Ying Zheng into more than a butcher. Xuejian shows us a genuinely complex character who begins his campaigns dreaming of a position as an enlightened despot, but whose very sanity is stretched almost to the breaking point by betrayal and deceit until he gives his more bloodthirsty impulses free rein, with disastrous results. Xuejian makes every development in Zheng's character convincing and almost justified, and as a result he is completely magnetic.

Still, it ain't a big period war movie without big period war scenes, and Kaige knows his way around a field of armored extras. Horses thunder across green plains, battle machines roll menacingly up to city walls, cries of anguish and victory echo over hillsides and down valleys in Kaige's view of ancient battlegrounds, with a splendid martial score underlying it all. In more intimate moments, too, Kaige shows his customary sure touch, allowing the film to play out at a slow yet stately pace both to ratchet up the tension and allow the characters to consider the risks and rewards of their actions as they take them. And there is nothing, nothing at all, in this film that is not beautifully photographed. Kaige obviously strove for vastness in this film: vast personalities, vast canvasses, vast themes. He has achieved everything he set out to do, with authority.

The only problem with the film, from a non-Mandarin speaker's point of view, is not Kaige's fault at all, but Sony Classics'. The subtitles do not do this film justice at all. Besides containing a misspelling, they render what must have been poetic Chinese (judging from the reverence with which the actors and Kaige treat it) into what is oftentimes upsettingly banal English. Still, these actors are good enough that you can tell what they are really saying, and no inane subtitles can undercut the power of this film. Don't wait for it to come out on video, but see it in a theater now, where the hugeness of Kaige's conception can truly envelop you. After its three mesmerizing hours, you'll leave knowing that you're just seen a masterpiece.

There is something I'm missing here, not because I didn't feel it but because I couldn't quite figure out how to write about it: this is a painful film, shot through with despair and duty and astonishing brutality from what are supposed to be sympathetic characters. I would eventually figure out how to do this, and on deadline too. I still think this is an astonishing film.

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