The Death of Imagination

The irony is that, if you know history, you know that the unified state did not, in fact, bring the "good of all". I understand that one can't expect familiarity with the historical context of the casual viewer, but, as near as I could tell, the internal context of the film failed to establish that unity under the Qin was, in fact, superior to the present disunity. We see almost nothing of daily life in either state; the citizens of Qin are represented by soldiers, the citizens of Zhou by cloistered calligraphers. All we have to go on is the word of the Emperor as to the benefits of his unopposed rule.

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pheret1.livejournal.com

Romance is the ability to suspend logic. While what you say is true, appreciation of the movie as it was presented can be accomplished by taking the journey with the character and believeing, as he believed, that it would, in fact, be best.

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niemandsrose.livejournal.com

I wouldn't say I was disturbed, even though I also grasped the same overarching themes. Rather, I was kind of entertained at the things a director has to do to get past the censorship board in China. They had a thing on NPR about him, and the movie, and the censors, and it said that his previous two films got made and then got shelved by the Chinese authorities...and of course, they don't have to tell you why when they do that...so what would *you* do? I think I'd just make a Commie-core film like "Hero".

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You've seen some of his earlier films, haven't you? Somehow they managed to slip past the censors without turing into party propaganda. Maybe you're right and he's simply gotten tired of fighting the authorities. In that case, it's a shame he didn't choose exile over becoming a shill.

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niemandsrose.livejournal.com

Maybe for him the moral messages his films convey aren't really the point. I mean, he's obviously a style-driven guy more than plot-driven. After all, we can't all be tortured Romantic auteurs who have to actually *believe* everything we say. Some of us play games.

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Again, I find that hard to believe given what powerful moral messages were delivered by such films as Ju Dou (which is pratically an instruction book in how to bring a grievance to the authorities) and Raise the Red Lantern. It would be one thing if his earlier films were apologia for state power one moment and something complete else the next, but they seemed to express a consistent worldview that valued highly the rights of the individual and was not so ends-oriented. But maybe I'm only reading into them what I want to see.

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current politics aside. do you still feel that way on a purely historical context?

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What, do you mean "How do I feel in general about the Qin unification?"

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more specifically, "how do you feel about how the movie dealt with the Qin unification?". do you think that historical accuracy (or non-accuracy) made the movie better or worse? all i'm getting at is to see if your being bothered about the movie is too strongly colored by your feelings about the current politics of the region.

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It completely whitewashed the Qin Emperor. The cruelty of his demands on the Chinese people (how many died building his fantastic wall?) is folkloric, yet Hero paints him as a poor, misunderstood reformer who doesn't care about power and sees destroying all political opposition to him simply as the best means to peace and prosperity for all. He's depicted as the apotheosis of the ideal Confucian ruler when, in reality, he was a Legalist who burned Confucius' works. (For an entirely different interpretation of this historical figure, see Cheng Kaige's The Emperor and the Assassin [which also, incidentally, got past the Chinese censors].)

I don't know much about the state of Zhou, so I can't comment on how accurately that conflict is depicted. Certainly, their accuracy in details such as costuming, currency, calligraphy, and so forth was outstanding, but I don't think that's what you meant.

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so, in other words, the movie's storyline sucked from all angles for you...?

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I wouldn't say that; I found the conflicts between the assassins and the cat-and-mouse game between Nameless and the Emperor engrossing, but the ultimate resolution really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm surprised more Americans don't have the same response, giving our lionisation of the maverick and tradition of resistance to statism.

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i doubt if most americans thought of the movie in the context of a political statement. everyone i know just thinks of it as another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. even i didn't connect the political dots and i have some knowledge of the politics of that region. your knowledge of world issues makes you more sensitive to those things.

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I just find that bizarre. After all, imagine if Return of the Jedi had ended with the Emperor convincing Luke that resistence was only prolonging the agony of the common people and, as a result, he decides to willingly submit to public execution. Would you expect Americans to watch that and then talk about nothing else afterward except how pretty the colours were and how cool the fight scenes?

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actually, yes--if Return of the Jedi were written in a way that justifies that conclusion.

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princeofcairo.livejournal.com

Give Lucas time, and you can see that ending in the No Really I'm Serious Now Special Increasingly Isolated And Insane Director's Cut Edition.

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bunj.livejournal.com

Will this be the one where all of the Wookiees, including Chewbacca, get replaced with Ewoks?

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lhn.livejournal.com

Does that mean that Artoo will get to win the chess game?

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lhn.livejournal.com

I took it much as I did "Alexander Nevsky", a well-done movie worth seeing on its own merits, which is also propaganda for an odious regime. In some ways, the obviousness of the propaganda made me less uncomfortable personally, since there was no way I was going to come out of the film thinking "oh, yes, unification of China (or of the civilized world, given the literal meaning of the phrase that had such an effect on two assassins) is worth any amount of brutality". (The fact that I have outside knowledge of Shi Huangdi also helps. He was totalitarian before totalitarianism was cool.) Taking a step back, it also seems obvious that the horrific effects of disunity alluded to in the film have no parallel with the decades of, if not peace, successful avoidance of war between China and Taiwan. It's not as if a typical Chinese viewer (at least one too young to remember the Civil War, which is most of them by now) has memories of Nationalist brigands tearing up the countryside.

But I don't know how any of that goes over to a Chinese audience being prepared for the costs of forcible reunification, a Taiwanese audience being intimidated, a Hong Kong audience being reminded that unity has primacy over any stratagems used to achieve it (e.g., a promise of fifty years of special status), or a Western audience being prepped to see a Chinese invasion of Hong Kong as a reassertion of legitimate rule. I think it's a good movie despite being propaganda, but I am concerned about whether its success as propaganda might outweigh its artistic value. (And then, there's not much I can do about it, except maybe see the next movie by a Taiwanese director about a noble local leader resisting outside conquest.)

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bunj.livejournal.com

(And then, there's not much I can do about it, except maybe see the next movie by a Taiwanese director about a noble local leader resisting outside conquest.)

A Koxinga bio-pic starring Chow Yun-fat definitely needs to be made!

I considered a subversive reading for Hero. After all, if you're trying to persuade Taiwan to unify, a totalitarian dictator who only brought fifteen years of peace is not necessarily the best example. Then again, I don't know how the Qin emperor is portrayed in Taiwanese and Chinese schools.

I also thought Jiang might be doing something with the calligraphers continuing to work during the battle. Knowing how original thought will be crushed under Qin, they're ready to go down writing.

I considered a subversive reading, but ultimately I just didn't think there was enough to support it, and I was just trying to comfort myself. Like

muckefuck I was disturbed by this film. I'd like to think I could enjoy it out of context (both historical and current), because it is a beautiful film. There is much to enjoy, but that doesn't stop the queasy feeling it also gives me (I also can't watch Evita but that's for both aesthetic and political reasons).

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lhn had a good point about Alexander Nevsky.

I didn't think of it in terms of the broader historical context. I thought that the story/realization were really powerful within the contest of the film.

I mean, is it supposed to be propaganda? Or is it supposed to be a fairy tale? I took it as the latter.

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"context," dammit!

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So even within the context of the film you don't have a problem with the themes? It's powerful for Nameless to choose to abandon his mission, knowing the fate that awaits him, but I also found it very disturbing.

We must have different definitions of "fairy tale", since mine precludes the inclusion of identifiable historical characters as major players. At most, I would call this a "legend" of the rise of Qin.

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(1) Disturbing? Sure. But it was also consistent within the character and within the story. I suppose that, unlike Troy or King Arthur, because I know pretty much nothing about that period of Chinese history, I was able to just view the film as it is, without attaching trappings of the reality of the emperor's cruelty or present-day policies toward Taiwan.

(2) I use "fairy tale" alot more loosely than that, but I can see your point.

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The story is thin, though, so I found it difficult to answer some of the questions that piqued me by staying within its bounds. As I told

pheret1, we so no evidence whatsoever that life is better under Qin. We know that its military was responsible for the deaths of Nameless' parents and we see it bringing overwhelming force to bear on a city that is offering no visible resistance whatsoever. (Maybe it's the irreality of confrontations like these that give the movie some of its "fairy tale" quality.)

I guess I'm just surprised to find so many people who strike me as anti-military and anti-authoritarian accepting unquestioningly a highly-militarised totalitarian state (whose endless ranks of soldiers are even clad in black!) as a positive force. The Emperor's claims seem to be taken at face-value despite the fact that they come after more than an hour has been spent casting doubt on people's statements of beliefs, intentions, and actions. I ask myself Are these really the same people who are horrified that half the nation intends to re-elect Bush?

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(a) Because the militarism was countered by gorgeous bits of non-militarism, like the calligraphy students.

(b) Because it is a movie and not real life.

I mean, for pete's sake, I love The Crow, but if a real-life vigilante went around carving criminals into bits with their own knives, I'd be horrified.

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(a) Because the militarism was countered by gorgeous bits of non-militarism, like the calligraphy students.

Who we see slaughtered mercilessly by the Qin warriors! I'm afraid this example makes me even more puzzled.

(b) Because it is a movie and not real life.

I realise that and I don't expect the horror engendered by contemplation of Qin to approach that produced in response to a real-life totalitarian state. But, like I say, I'm puzzled that it also fails to elicit even the dislike produced by the Emperor in Star Wars or the corrupt sheriff in Silverado. Is it because Chen Daoming is just so darned handsome?

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Well, it is true that for a while I was gobsmacked by the utter coolness of the archers shooting with their feet.

I dunno. It's not like I didn't notice the things you're talking about. I mean, there were so many guys in black that it was ridiculous. But the emperor wasn't wholly evil, as he is in Star Wars. He had more depth than that as a character.

Maybe it's the epic scale of the thing? People always do noble, boneheaded things in melodramatic epics, and this was most definitely both melodramatic and epic. And the characters made plenty of boneheaded decisions for reasons they clearly felt were noble.

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princeofcairo.livejournal.com

After seeing Hero,

his_regard and I jokingly pretended that it was a paean to American empire, and that Zhang had ringingly convinced China to surrender to its natural American masters for the sake of global unity. I don't think you can call that a "subversive" reading, so much as a "smartass" one.

But seriously, my response was similar to

lhn; I've seen way too many movies that endorse repugnant politics to jibe at every one of them.

On the larger question, I think most American audiences assume that art films -- or the East, in general -- will be weird and alien and say nothing in particular to them, so they're not even bothering to watch them the same way they'd watch a Star Wars flick.

Americans enjoy samurai movies without exalting suicide -- and, on the other hoof, many, many American Buddhists treat Zen like "I'm OK, You're OK" and assemble their Buddhism like a salad bar from Tibet, Japan, and nothing in particular. Trivialization of Otherness goes both ways.

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