(1999; Chinese) In 221 BC, after 550 years of civil war, seven kingdoms comprised the territory of China. Determined to obey the commandment of his ancestors to unify all of the kingdoms into a single empire, the king of Qin, Ying Zheng (Li Xuejian), vows a personal crusade to accomplish the feat. Director Chen Kaige beautifully portrays this lavish historical romance in five chapters.

Numerous obstacles bar King Ying's path, beginning with Marquis Li Si, who conspires with the Queen Mother, who has given birth to two of his sons (his hoped for future heirs to the kingdom). Meanwhile, King Ying's army defeats the kingdom of Han.

His childhood sweetheart, Lady Zhao (Gong Li), requests permission to return to her home, no longer content with being an object of the palace. Recalling their earlier love as youths, when she and Ying were impoverished living in the kingdom of Zhao, she confesses they've drifted apart over the years: he is "no longer the person I once knew" now that he's king. However, with a speech he convinces her of the worthiness of his great cause, saying his plan is to marry her once he becomes the benevolent ruler of all China, bringing peace and prosperity to all Chinese peoples.

His next conquest must be Yan, to bring together the northern kingdoms under his dominion; but to prevent the southern kingdoms from unifying against him, he needs a rationale to attack Yan. Lady Zhao suggests letting his prisoner, the Prince of Yan, return to his homeland accompanied by herself, where he will recruit an assassin to kill Ying. To make herself a convincing accomplice, she allows the prison warden to brand her left cheek as punishment for repeatedly asking to be allowed to return to Zhao.

In Yan a notorious assassin (wearing tiny bells in his long hair), Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi), has foresworn killing anyone else, repenting after he was hired to slaughter a sword maker and his family, whose adolescent daughter, "pretty and pure," whom he chose not to slay for being blind, performed felo-de-se in front of him. Though he is rescued by Lady Zhao from prison and torture after she witnessed his humbling himself before a baker, whom he killed accidentally, to save the life a of child thief, he adamantly tells her: "I don't kill people." The Prince of Yan gives her three months to change Jing's mind or become his hostage.

Back in Qin, Li Si attempts a palace coupe with his rebels when the Queen Mother denounces her son as king. Chen Kaige masterfully stages the combat between King Ying's soldiers and the confederates as choreography.

Guilty of treason and adultery, Li Si says he was motivated more by love for the Queen Mother than by ambition for either of his preadolescent sons (who are killed) to become king. Taunting Ying for not knowing his actual parentage, Li Si accused the king of not being of Qin heritage; before he became king, he was brought to Qin from Zhao by his protector, the former prime minister Lu Buwei, as a young man, along with his mother and Lady Zhao.

When word reaches Lady Zhao that King Ying has personally led an assault on the capital of Zhao, where the King of Zhao has threatened to cast all of the children over the city walls if the gates are breached, she realizes in disenchantment that her former lover has become a ruthless killer unconcerned with the lives of her people. Jing agrees to become an assassin once more in exchange for Lady Zhao's freedom; posing as an envoy to Qin, he and his assistant bear a map of unity (concealing a long knife) and a desirable prize (enshrouding a secret never to be revealed).

Though the empire eventually was achieved, it lasted but fifteen years.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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