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The Emperor and the Assassin
If William Shakespeare had been a contemporary, Chinese filmmaker, his name would have been Kaige Chen, and his Hamlet would have been The Emperor and the Assassin. All that is missing is the phrase “The Tragedy of” in the front of the title. Here is one of the most moving, cinematic Shakespearean-inspired tragedies of our time—a tale of epic scope, stunning battle sequences, and quiet, moving characters, all rolled up into a grippingly exciting story. The film is set in 3 B.C., and it follows King Ying Zheng’s (Li Xuejian) bid to unite all of China under one emperor. Born a commoner but now the king of Qin, one of the seven remaining territories left that would one day make up China, Zheng is at first a good man with noble intentions. He hopes to unify China in order to stop the centuries-old war and bloodshed between the territories. As played by Xuejian, he is a deeply introspective man who is less interested in his own gain than he is bringing war to an end—as a captured prince of another territory threatens to kill Zheng, the king replies, “Go ahead. Then you will ultimately be emperor. Either way, the killing must stop.” Nevertheless, Zheng is willing to wage war as efficiently as possible in order to unify China with all necessary swiftness. As a means to this end, he and his mistress, Lady Zhoa (Li Gong) concoct a plan that will enable them to enter into battle against the neighboring territory Yan. He will release a hostage from Yan along with the Lady Zhoa, disguised as a banished criminal. She will convince Yan to hire an assassin to kill Zheng. The assassin will fail, of course, but the act will provide Zheng a convenient excuse to invade Yan without the neighboring territories taking up arms in Yan’s defense. Eventually, like the good-intentioned heroes of Shakespeare, Zheng’s sanity and morality begin to cave in under political pressures, death threats, conspiracies, and the attempt to maintain control and power despite all these complications. As his judgment fades and his lust for power increases, he begins to make a series of very bad decisions that eventually leads to self-corruption that horrifies even those closest to him. In a parallel story, we are also given Jing Ke (a mesmerizing Fengyi Zhang), the “assassin” of the title. Jing Ke is introduced in a scene in which he mercilessly slaughters the family of a sword maker with cunning ruthlessness and efficiency. He is even confident enough to wear bells in his hair to signal his coming. But when one of the deaths end in tragedy that deeply troubles him, Jing Ke swears that he will never kill again. When Lady Zhoa finds him in prison and commissions him to assassinate Zheng, Jing Ke at first refuses to go along with her plot; however, as Lady Zhoa becomes horrified at Zheng’s lust for power and realizes that an assassin might not be such a bad idea after all, Jing Ke is forced to consider her offer from a moral standpoint. All of this adds up to plot twists and story developments that I shall not reveal, but by understanding that The Emperor and the Assassin follows a strict Shakespearian formula (lots of speeches, lots of conspiracies, lots of deaths), I probably don’t need to advise you to keep a box of tissues handy. Like the Bard, director Kaige Chen is a fairly lousy historian who is more interested in a romanticized history than accuracy. As Zheng joyfully shouts out the many things he will accomplish as emperor of China, he names off so many historical Chinese landmarks throughout the ages that I was surprised that he didn’t toss in something about General Mao. But then, Chen isn’t trying to make a historical film here. Rather, like Shakespeare, he creates a stirring fiction by retelling an ancient story with a tragic twist and effective melodrama, and he successfully uses every dramatic device in the book to paint his picture. Every character therefore has a secret, and every decision made is a means to shuffle the characters along to their tragic, if inevitable, fates. Yet also like Shakespeare, Chen’s film uses these melodramatic devices to paint a beautiful, haunting picture of humanity and sorrow. The director gives his characters deep, internal conflicts that root them firmly in their own flaws and inner conflicts. Zheng, Jing Ke, and their costars are neither good nor evil, but simply troubled individuals whose decisions—both good and bad—have long lasting consequences. As Zheng revels in bloodthirsty vengeance over a territory that he despises, we cannot help but think of MacBeth or Hamlet’s Uncle, Claudius—two men who had the potential to be good but instead became demonized by their greed. As I watched Zheng’s palace grow more and more beautiful and complex in its architecture as his obsession for power increased, I also thought of Orson Welles’ interpretation of MacBeth, in which the villain’s kingly garments grow bigger and bigger, encompassing the false king so much that he can often barely move. Like MacBeth, Zheng is a king so over his head in power that he is incapable of realizing that he is in over his head. Chen’s characters are moving and engaging as they make their journeys. Zheng’s descent into madness is convincing, as is Lady Zhao’s realization that her lover is not the moral man who she fell in love with. That said, I was most moved by Jing Ke’s journey from killer-for-hire to hermit to, eventually, saint. His evolution is presented in a three-story arch of gripping poignancy: Jing Ke eventually becomes the moral backbone to the story. He is a man so ruined after years of merciless killing that, unlike Zheng, he has reached his boiling point and has walked away scalded. He is haunted by images of the murders that he has committed, and he is horrified at the thought of killing again. He represents a wounded man who Zheng, in his path of bloody glory, is on the verge of becoming, and as Zheng’s slaughter only escalates, Jing Ke is forced to question whether or not the people of China can afford to wait for the king to reach such a terrible revelation. Yet to assassinate the king would mean that Jing Ke’s own personal vow of never killing again would be broken, and he would lose his honor and perhaps his salvation. If my review has thus far made The Emperor and the Assassin sounds like a touching human drama, that’s because this is exactly what it is. As such, most of the images that Chen employs stir our hearts and emotions, but never in a manipulative way. The difference between most Hollywood productions and this film is that Hollywood is obsessed with commercializing sadness—they package sacrifice and death in a way that squeezes the tears out of the audience, for only the sake of a manipulative emotional response. See Patch Adams and Pearl Harbor. Chen, on the other hand, creates images of such startling honesty that we cry because we are forced to consider the truth of moral depravity of the realistic human nature that we are watching. The mistakes that people make are authentic, and so is the innocence that is lost. Here is an example: As a suicide squadron of children jump off of a high wall in protest of war, one stops to reach for a toy that is just out of his grasp. The camera sits on him for a moment, and the audience is forced to consider the innocence of the child and the needless death that he and his companions meet. Hollywood would have taken a short cut by A) showing the child leaping off the tower in slow motion as the music swelled, or B) not having the audacity to show the children jumping off at all, because it would have been too challenging and not emotionally fulfilling. In any case, rest assured that the image of this child reaching for his toy will be with me for a long, long time, and that it earns the right to leave this impression. The Emperor and the Assassin is also aesthetically beautiful. Chen limits himself to mainly red and blue filters, and these successfully convey the moods of his characters and richly paint the world of ancient China. The battle sequences are freshly done, with violence downplayed to place an emphasis on the force of large armies. There is a brilliant moment in which the camera silently follows a large army as it marches to the steps of its enemy, and Chen creates a scene of epic scope while at the same time emphasizing the conflict of one or two chief characters. By keeping the scene without a soundtrack and simply watching the battle primarily from a distance, Chen utilizes a documentary-like feel that is both stirring and heartbreaking. It is one of the great scenes of war ever filmed. Most of the battles, in fact, do not contain a soundtrack, and we are so engaged and drawn into theses scenes of death and war that we barely realize that we are watching a work of fiction at all. Chen’s film eventually boils down to the ingredients of what makes Hamlet the masterful work of art that it is: It is a character-driven tragedy in which the heroes and the protagonists are all forced to realize that they are who their choices have turned them into. The stuff of Shakespearian drama are all here: Long soliloquies, battle sequences, romantic subplots, and whispered conspiracies, but they all lead to the same, great revelation that the Prince of Denmark faced as he confronted his final destiny: “Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?” Chen draws some characters in The Emperor and the Assassin who have always realized that they are as fragile and mortal as sparrows, and others who come to learn. But in the end, they all know, and they’re all humbled by the tragedy that their choices have lead. Because the movie works, so are we.
Cast: Sony Pictures Classics presents a Beijing Film Studio production. Directed by Kaige Chen. Written by Chen and Peigong Wang. Rated R, for images of violence and some profanity. Running time: 163 minutes. Original year of release: 1999. Chinese language, with English subtitles. Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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