The Emperor's Shadow

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07/29/2012 The set designs are truly epic, a fabulous recreation of the era. Unfortunately it also feels a little dry like a museum piece, in spite of the scope of passion and drama that unfurls. See more 05/24/2010 (** 1/2): [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon13.gif[/img] A bloated epic. I liked the story from the beginning and was intrigued but the film became overlong and it seemed like the focus of the film drifted toward emphasizing the killing of thousands of people (mostly the empire's slaves) instead of the story of the emperor, his "brother" and the creation of a national song. See more 08/29/2009 An overlooked Chinese spectacular about personal relationship between the first emperor of China and his childhood friend which is a genius composer. Directed by one of the Chinese 5th Generation directors, Xiaowen Zhou. Unlike other big-scale Chinese film setting in ancient kingdoms, it does not have a single scene of martial arts or sword fighting, but it is still a first-class entertainment. What makes this film great is definitely performances by the two best actors of China today, Wen Jiang and You Ge - It is like DiCaplio and Pitt are in the same film. Especially You Ge plays the difficult role so professionally. Besides it is a good political suspense, it is also a great love story between the heroin who's the daughter of the emperor and You Ge's character, and the beauty of Qing Xu, who plays the heroin, is outstanding. Putting aside the question whether this story is really based on the real history, it has great performances and some unforgettable scenes which inspires me a lot. See more 05/15/2009 A memorable film with great performances by Jiang Wen & Ge You. See more 04/03/2009 Very nicely done Chinese period piece. See more 12/30/2008 Chinese period pieces are awesome because you know everyone knows martial arts. Even the people who clearly don't have the physical aspects down pat are clearly able to spout nonsense about "the way of heaven". The movie itself was pretty good. Makes royalty look fucked up. I'm pretty certain they are. I like the more decorative ones in general but this historical drama was definitely interesting. See more Read all reviews

The Emperor's Shadow

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