The Emperor's Shadow (1996)

Best movie of this year hands down!

That was an excellent one.

People are voting emotionally.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

When exploring the Asian epics it is wonderful to find out that all the critics and the general ideas are wrong. First of all, not all Asian pictures are filled with martial arts nonsense. Far from it, I'd say.And here is a truely great epic. It has been compared with Kurosawa's RAN, which is rather silly since that film has been made by one of the Founding Fathers of cinema, and also with BRAVEHEART, which comes pretty close.Somehow this film keeps the mind spinning; the wonderful stories of Jorge Luis Borges about this First Chinese Emperor twists and turns in the back of the mind. The refusal of using too bright a' colours in wardrobe keeps you asking why we needed all these glistening colours with Bertolucci's tale of the LAST EMPEROR anyway.Is this epic true to history ? I really couldn't tell. It might be... I do know it is a wonderful lush film, and within its grand scale it has found a way to talk about the small yet important things. It is a gorgeous epic, and romantic without the silliness we westerners usually mix in our grand stories...

When Zang Xiao Ping died three years ago at the age of 91, Richard Holdbrooke, the US Ambassador to the UN said that he will be remembered as relentlessly trying to bring a long-lasting period of peace, away from food famines, war, instability, financial dependence to foreign nations. The king in this motion picture, while claims that a national anthem will conquer hearts and minds of the eventually united kindoms that make China, also ponders on unifying scales and measures, trade protocols, language. Interesting parallel with modern-day China of Zang, the king's daughter is cripple from a fall off a horse. Zang's son was crippled from a fall off a window in the late sixties trying to escape the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

Don't be misled by ANY of the US critics who reviewed this remarkable movie. The Emperor's Shadow's (Qin Song) opening sequence-anything but subtle with hundreds of enormous bells being sacrificed to a thundering cataract of water and river foam--and the dying Emperor's last pronouncement are a perfect preamble for what follows.And pay no attention to the cursory plot summaries--far more is involved here than a simple stubborn musician who seduces the Emperor's favorite daughter and refuses to compose a national anthem. Word play, puns and verbal sparring are very important in the film (e.g. the instrument the musician plays is a qin; the Emperor is head of the Qin dynasty); and the love/hate; cat and mouse; art vs politics; peace vs war; pacifism vs force themes embodied in the relationship between the Emperor and the musician is one of the most fascinating interpersonal conundrums since Henry II and Thomas Becket.The fact that this extraordinary film did not make the rounds of all US art houses is a tragedy. The scope, the grandure, the uniformly excellent performances, the stunning cinematography add up to a unique and unusually compelling experience.The Emperor's Shadow may also be one of your very last chances to witness a true epic--there are no computer generated masses here--each one of those thousands and thousands of soldiers is a real human being.The Emperor's Shadow is a misunderstood, over-looked, underestimated masterpiece.

A stirring beautiful epic with a heart at the center. The kind of movie that the U.S. doesn't make much anymore. Not amazing that people in around 200 BC had feelings and emotions like ours, even the people in high high places. There's one line about sex and politics (the emperor talks to his council about how affairs of the state have no relation to sexual matters) that had the small audience (the movie has been playing here for 28 weeks) laughing. Really enjoyable and interesting movie.