The Emperor's Shadow

Harmony, in art as in politics, can be deceptive. As the goal of Ying Zheng (Jiang Wen), who became the first emperor of a united China in the third century BC, it can be downright genocidal. Zheng's rollicking, obsessed, bloodsoaked career gets an Asian-style, Cecil B. DeMille treatment from veteran Chinese director Zhou Xiaowen (Ermo) in The Emperor's Shadow, a film so unclear in its political and artistic point of view, it was banned and then released by the Chinese authorities twice. Fortunately it squeezed by: brisk and hoky, it's sometimes stunning and always entertaining.

A key to Zheng's plans for conquering China's disparate kingdoms and winning "the hearts and minds" of his subjects is the composition of a national anthem. For that he turns to his boyhood friend Gao Janli (Ge You), a master of the zither-like gu'qin (the music sounds like Ry Cooder's). To obtain Janli's services, however, Zheng must first conquer his friend's country, enslave his people, behead thousands, brand, torture, and imprison the stubborn musician, and finally blind him with horse piss (record companies take note).

Complicating matters is Zheng's flighty, paralyzed daughter Yueyang (Xu Qing), who takes a shine to Janli when he rapes her and restores her ability to walk. That doesn't sit well with Yueyang's fiancé, the son of Zheng's chief general, or her retinue of eunuchs, and it sets up a climax as gruesome as that of Titus Andronicus. Reminiscent of Kurosawa's Kagemusha in its dynamism and audacious imagery, Shadow may not say much about the nature of art, loyalty, power, and harmony, but its jarring dissonances and dark mirth ring true.

-- Peter Keough