Word: assassins
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...title role in American Psycho, her film of Bret Easton Ellis' incendiary novel about a yuppie murderer, and Harron declined. But after Di Caprio dropped out, she made the $6 million movie with Christian Bale. Anyone who saw her I Shot Andy Warhol, with Lili Taylor as would-be assassin Valerie Solanas, could spot the Canadian-born Oxford graduate's mulishness and taste for beguiling sociopaths. Also her love of period Manhattan. "The Ellis novel has enormously violent sections," she says. "But there's also some great satirical stuff about the late '80s. It's better than Bonfire...
...opening moments of The Emperor and the Assassin are breathtaking for their bravado and finesse: Ying Zheng, the soon-to-be emperor of China, overtakes a fleeing enemy army on horseback, one soldier at a time. Leaping onto a fresher horse in mid-gallop and disposing of its hapless owner, he makes short work of the remaining riders and finally succeeds in cutting off the general at the fore, killing him with one swift stab in the chest. Shot with the camera speeding alongside the galloping horses, this first scene promises a magnificent cinematic experience, something both visually and emotionally...
...that the bloodshed he has incurred is only necessary in creating a lasting period of peace--until it becomes obvious that he will spare no one and nothing, not even her home-state, in his bid to be emperor. She then turns to Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi), renowned assassin of virtuosic sword-wielding abilities, to put an end to Ying Zheng's reign of tyranny. Haunted by the ghosts of his victims but redeemed by the love that springs up between him and Lady Zhao, Jing Ke sets off for a final showdown with Ying Zheng...
...rest is a mess of slow-paced courtly intrigue and gory battle scenes, albeit gorgeously shot. Not even the radiant Gong Li, who too often proves the saving grace in other overly-serious cinematic efforts, is unable to rescue the titanic The Emperor and The Assassin from sinking under its own epic weight. In what should have been a stunning scene, Lady Zhao runs onto the corpse-strewn battlefield of her home-state Zhao to find the mass grave of all Zhao's children, massacred by Ying Zheng. At first incredulous, then hysterically digging up one small, blue body after...
...that violent movies cannot be good ones. But good violent movies win over the viewer by matching the visceral intensity of head-hacking with solid emotional substance. Unlike Ying Zheng, who exacts a bloody toll of thousands and still succeeds in fulfilling his ambition, The Emperor and The Assassin exacts its toll--without, sadly, achieving similar greatness...