When he turned 50-years-old, China's first emperor had more than most: 270 palaces filled with riches to fulfill his materialistic needs, and some 3,000 concubines to cuddle. Still, Qin was unhappy, so he pushed fate by ordering his alchemists to create for him the ultimate vitamin--an immortality supplement. Unfortunately, the number one ingredient listed on the label was mercury, which had the effect of hastening the emperor to his grave, not the opposite. This Canadian/Chinese co-production which says on the box cover that it's a 1995 production, but is in fact a 1989 film, is something of an oddity. A docudrama, the first half chronicles the emperor's rise to power (he reigned from 221-210 B.C.) offering minimal overlaid narration and lots of court and battle scenes. Though handsomely staged, the amount of history in the first half could be reduced to a couple of paragraphs, repetitive scenes of armies clashing are hardly in short supply, and there are far better epics out there. The second half is more interesting in that Qin's reforms are mentioned: standardizing weights and measures, widening roads, simplifying the language, burying 460 intellectuals alive (a rather extreme reform), etc. All of the Chinese spoken in the film is untranslated, and I don't know about you, but my Chinese is a little shaky (no matter how much Qin simplified it). The tape concludes with the discovery in 1974 of Qin's huge buried terra cotta army (also covered in "The Glories of Ancient Chang-An," an episode in The Silk Road series [VL-1/91]). Beautifully filmed, but with a pointlessly high battle-scene-to-information ratio, The First Emperor of China is strictly an optional purchase. (R. Pitman)
The First Emperor of China
(1989/1995) 42 min. $195 (study guide included). National Film Board of Canada. PPR. Color cover. Vol. 11, Issue 2
The First Emperor of China
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