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The Emperor's Shadow

Released Jul 18, 1997 1h 56m History Drama List
80% Tomatometer 5 Reviews 73% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
During childhood, Ying Zheng (Wen Jiang) forges a friendship with Gao Jianli (Ge You) due to the fact that Gao's mother is his wet nurse. The two take different paths in life: Ying Zheng is crowned king, while Gao develops into a famed musician. In the midst of King Zheng's initiatives to unify China, he kidnaps his old friend to coerce him into writing an anthem for him. Their reunion, albeit forced, leads to spirited debates between them about various public and personal matters.

Critics Reviews

View All (5) Critics Reviews
Susan Stark Detroit News Rated: 3/4 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times The movie is not subtle or especially insightful, but it is intrinsically interesting (when have you seen these characters or situations before?), and sumptuously mounted and photographed. Rated: 3/4 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Jim Lane Sacramento News & Review Rated: 4/5 Aug 7, 2008 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 2/5 Oct 30, 2005 Full Review Richard Porton Film Journal International Unquestionably a vigorous example of old-fashioned storytelling that compensates for its occasional clunkiness with a great deal of narrative zest. Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (10) audience reviews
Audience Member 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. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Audience Member (** 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. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member 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. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member A memorable film with great performances by Jiang Wen & Ge You. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Very nicely done Chinese period piece. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member 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. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Emperor's Shadow

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis During childhood, Ying Zheng (Wen Jiang) forges a friendship with Gao Jianli (Ge You) due to the fact that Gao's mother is his wet nurse. The two take different paths in life: Ying Zheng is crowned king, while Gao develops into a famed musician. In the midst of King Zheng's initiatives to unify China, he kidnaps his old friend to coerce him into writing an anthem for him. Their reunion, albeit forced, leads to spirited debates between them about various public and personal matters.
Director
Xiaowen Zhou
Producer
Kunning Chen, Jimmy Tan, Pimin Zhang
Screenwriter
Wei Lu
Distributor
Ocean Releasing
Genre
History, Drama
Original Language
Chinese
Release Date (Theaters)
Jul 18, 1997, Wide
Box Office (Gross USA)
$77.5K
Runtime
1h 56m
Sound Mix
Surround