Word: ying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sounds reasonable, but reputable scientists who agree with LeVake can be counted on one hand. "There are transitional fossils out the ying-yang," says Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. "The problem is [antievolutionists] will never tell you what they would accept as a transitional fossil." Scott, one of the school district's expert witnesses against LeVake, says, "If you look at the content of his curriculum guide, it's the same thing that five years ago they called creation science. He's just left out the C word." Indeed, creationists have become...
...during the so-called Warring States period in China, the story revolves around Ying Zheng (Li Xuejian), whose grandiose ambition to unify the states into one massive, centralized entity is both truly visionary and tragically misdirected. Though (debatably) well-intentioned, Ying Zheng resorts to more and more extreme acts of violence to achieve his goals. In protest of his increasing brutality, Lady Zhao (Gong Li), Ying Zheng's childhood friend and long-time lover, announces that she is leaving him. Ying Zheng manages to convince her that the bloodshed he has incurred is only necessary in creating a lasting period...
Certainly, there is great potential here for a genuinely moving epic: Lady Zhao, caught between two powerful men, must choose between loyalty and justice, old love and new love; Ying Zhang and Jing Ke must decide between ambition and conscience. But though all the right ingredients are assembled, the equation somehow fails to add up. The complexity and tension inherent to the characters aren't played out to their full potential, resulting in a certain degree of dramatic sag. Without strong characterizations, the plot founders, and the focal trio is all too easily eclipsed by the bombastic military hullabaloo around...
...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 another, the anguished and betrayed Lady Zhao almost gives one something to care about. But the overwhelming violence up to this point has only left the viewer numb and dry-eyed for this pivotal moment...
This is not, of course, to say 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...