"Hero" and the Qin Emperor
May. 18th, 2005 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikOkay, I'll try to keep this brief since I also need to get some sleep...
The Qin Emperor is one of the most fascinating and ambiguous figures in Chinese history. (And there are quite a few to choose from. Of course, this probably has more to do with cultural tropes wrt interpreting history than a greater frequency of ambiguous figures.) He united China. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is somewhat open to interpretation (well, by me, more on that later) but it's certainly impressive. But he was ruthless and brutal, terrified everyone, paranoid as heck (though possibly wth good reason) and didn't last long.
In other modern treatments of the Qin Emperor (I'm particularly thinking here of "The Emperor and the Assassin") I found myself wondering if the Qin Emperor was being used as an analogy for the modern mainland government. I got this impression even moreso in "Hero"... and if so, I'm kind of squicked. Because while the film played up the military dominance of Qin, and the grandeur and paranoia of the emperor (well, is it paranoia if they're out to get you?) you really didn't get that much of feel for the brutality and ruthlessness of the Qin Emperor. (Maybe you think you did. But you didn't, in the film, not really. Go back and read the period texts. He was fucking scary.) I mean, what is this film telling us? Unity, it seems, is presented as a goal worthy of being pursued whatever the cost.
This isn't an uninteresting premise. But if you're going to make this arguement, the film should have been a lot less one of intellectual interplay, and a lot more showing the cose involved... and the benefits accrued from unity. There was some kind of implication that unity was better for the common people, and better for the country as a whole.... Okay, then argue that point. Because it while it was asserted, it wasn't explored anywhere in the movie.
Meanwhile, I can't swallow that ends are so separable from means. Of course the classic interpretation of the Qin Emperor is that the very ruthlessness that made him so dominant in wartime made him unable to make a lasting peace on his own. He conquered China, but it was left for the Han to unite it. I'm not unwilling to consider that perhaps the Qin Emperor has been maligned be history, but... again, that's a theme that would have needed to have been explored in some depth, not that almost passing treatment it got in "Hero". One cannoy just dismiss the brutality of the Qin Emperor, or overlook that this very brutality made his dynasty notably short lived. If it's all about founding a lasting peace for the greater good... he didn't do that. Rather, in the end he reaped what he'd sowed. A sympathetic character portrain might have been interesting -- but a sympathetic take on his politics and methods? Gah.
(As a side note: I found the whole scene in the calligraphy school fascinating, in that it touched on, again without really exploring, the Qin conquest in terms of the effect it had on the great literary and cultural riches of Zhao. Oh, wait, but that was a dream, wasn't it?)
There is an underlying question in Hero, about whether ideas are more important than people... but it really isn't answered, or even given useful treatment.
And then you have Can Jian, Fei Xue, and Wu Ming all essentially chosing their own deaths. Okay, Wu Ming kind of put himself in an impossible position, so we'll let him off. But the other two? Can Jian chose to die to prove a point to Fei Xue. My fucking god, what a useless way to win an argument. What the hell was that about? I'm certainly a sucker for the soulful long haired aescetic swordsmen types, but remind me not to debate with this one. I can't quite see the compassion in giving anyone you love that kind of burden of guilt. In a more general sense, there almost seemed to be an implication that there was to be no room for them in the new world, so, as extraordinary and heroic as they were, they should willingly bare their throats so that history could inexorably creep forward.
Which has, I'll admit, a certain aesthetic appeal if you can buy into the underlying premise... but what a cop out. Fei Xue I have some sympathy for -- after she killed her lover, what else could she do? Certainly, she had plenty of reason for grief right then.
But in a more general sense... This really strikes me as a case where dying is easy, and living hard, and I have a lot of trouble being impressed by people who are so willing to pin themselves to such principles as to die for no reason. What, are you that afraid of change? Are you that unwilling to face what the world will become? Are you so convinced that it will have no place for you, or that you can not make it a little better by your presence?
The Qin Emperor is one of the most fascinating and ambiguous figures in Chinese history. (And there are quite a few to choose from. Of course, this probably has more to do with cultural tropes wrt interpreting history than a greater frequency of ambiguous figures.) He united China. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is somewhat open to interpretation (well, by me, more on that later) but it's certainly impressive. But he was ruthless and brutal, terrified everyone, paranoid as heck (though possibly wth good reason) and didn't last long.
In other modern treatments of the Qin Emperor (I'm particularly thinking here of "The Emperor and the Assassin") I found myself wondering if the Qin Emperor was being used as an analogy for the modern mainland government. I got this impression even moreso in "Hero"... and if so, I'm kind of squicked. Because while the film played up the military dominance of Qin, and the grandeur and paranoia of the emperor (well, is it paranoia if they're out to get you?) you really didn't get that much of feel for the brutality and ruthlessness of the Qin Emperor. (Maybe you think you did. But you didn't, in the film, not really. Go back and read the period texts. He was fucking scary.) I mean, what is this film telling us? Unity, it seems, is presented as a goal worthy of being pursued whatever the cost.
This isn't an uninteresting premise. But if you're going to make this arguement, the film should have been a lot less one of intellectual interplay, and a lot more showing the cose involved... and the benefits accrued from unity. There was some kind of implication that unity was better for the common people, and better for the country as a whole.... Okay, then argue that point. Because it while it was asserted, it wasn't explored anywhere in the movie.
Meanwhile, I can't swallow that ends are so separable from means. Of course the classic interpretation of the Qin Emperor is that the very ruthlessness that made him so dominant in wartime made him unable to make a lasting peace on his own. He conquered China, but it was left for the Han to unite it. I'm not unwilling to consider that perhaps the Qin Emperor has been maligned be history, but... again, that's a theme that would have needed to have been explored in some depth, not that almost passing treatment it got in "Hero". One cannoy just dismiss the brutality of the Qin Emperor, or overlook that this very brutality made his dynasty notably short lived. If it's all about founding a lasting peace for the greater good... he didn't do that. Rather, in the end he reaped what he'd sowed. A sympathetic character portrain might have been interesting -- but a sympathetic take on his politics and methods? Gah.
(As a side note: I found the whole scene in the calligraphy school fascinating, in that it touched on, again without really exploring, the Qin conquest in terms of the effect it had on the great literary and cultural riches of Zhao. Oh, wait, but that was a dream, wasn't it?)
There is an underlying question in Hero, about whether ideas are more important than people... but it really isn't answered, or even given useful treatment.
And then you have Can Jian, Fei Xue, and Wu Ming all essentially chosing their own deaths. Okay, Wu Ming kind of put himself in an impossible position, so we'll let him off. But the other two? Can Jian chose to die to prove a point to Fei Xue. My fucking god, what a useless way to win an argument. What the hell was that about? I'm certainly a sucker for the soulful long haired aescetic swordsmen types, but remind me not to debate with this one. I can't quite see the compassion in giving anyone you love that kind of burden of guilt. In a more general sense, there almost seemed to be an implication that there was to be no room for them in the new world, so, as extraordinary and heroic as they were, they should willingly bare their throats so that history could inexorably creep forward.
Which has, I'll admit, a certain aesthetic appeal if you can buy into the underlying premise... but what a cop out. Fei Xue I have some sympathy for -- after she killed her lover, what else could she do? Certainly, she had plenty of reason for grief right then.
But in a more general sense... This really strikes me as a case where dying is easy, and living hard, and I have a lot of trouble being impressed by people who are so willing to pin themselves to such principles as to die for no reason. What, are you that afraid of change? Are you that unwilling to face what the world will become? Are you so convinced that it will have no place for you, or that you can not make it a little better by your presence?
