BEIJING — China's last monarch, described in Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor," was an impotent puppet who could barely feed and clothe himself. In contrast, China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang, was a classic tyrant whose power and brutality have awed and disgusted Chinese for centuries.
But leading Chinese director Chen Kaige is making a movie about Qin Shihuang that shows a hint of sympathy for him. "Despots are not born that way," he insists.
Chen's new movie, "The Assassin," is a lavish epic, the biggest independently financed film ever made in China and a major gamble considering its politically loaded story--in fact, Chen admits he has no idea whether it will make it past the censors and be shown in China's theaters. After that, Chen is headed for Hollywood to become the first mainland Chinese director to make movies in America.
His American directing debut will be another historical epic: Chen is rewriting the script for Charles Dickens' classic "A Tale of Two Cities."
"I believe I can tell this story well," Chen says of the Dickens tale. "I see many things in the French Revolution that are comparable to what I went through during China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s."
Mel Gibson and Daniel Day-Lewis top the short list of candidates for the lead in the picture, which Chen will make for Warner Bros.
On the set of "Assassin" at the Beijing Film Studio, Chen's deep voice and imposing presence match the gravity of his mission. "I feel very strongly I'm doing an important piece of work," Chen says. "Its significance transcends just the movie."
The film tells the story of the attempted assassination of Qin Shihuang, who was the first emperor to rule over a united China. Qin Shihuang completed his conquest of five other kingdoms in 221 BC and founded a short-lived but crucial dynasty.
The antiquity of the story only serves to highlight the deep roots of the problems addressed in the film: political succession and the corruption born of absolute power. In the more than 2,000 years since Qin Shihuang' reign, China has almost never changed ruling dynasties without massive civil war.
"Clearly this is one way to do it, but I believe it is not the best," Chen says.
Historically, the first emperor is a towering figure, overseeing the building of the Great Wall of China. But he was obsessed with his own power, and to preserve it he put dissident scholars, inhabitants of conquered states and potential court rivals--including members of his own family--to the sword.
