The Emperor and the Assassin
Director: Chen Kaige
1998 / 162min / 35mm
The most expensive film ever made in the PRC when it took home the Technical Prize at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, inspired by the attempted assassination in the third century BC of Ying Zheng, first Emperor of a unified China, by folk hero Jing Ke, Chen’s opulent historical romance stars Zhang Fengyi as the would-be dynasty-toppler, Li Xuejian as the targeted tyrant, and Li, at her most radiantly resplendent and quietly commanding, as the royal concubine who begins as a willing pawn of her liege but then, taken with dashing conspirator Jing, moves to aid the plot against the throne in earnest. Shot over three years with a literal army of extras in meticulous period costume and no digital sleight of hand available to sweeten or otherwise falsify the image, Chen’s epic is closer to the world of Cecil B. DeMille than to the pixelized megaproductions of today.
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
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