After finishing the movie, all there is to think is, “What’s the moral of the story?” I checked the IMDB forums for an answer, and it’s sort of depressing. Plenty of people seem to think the moral is to follower your emperor even if he’s wrong. There are fewer action sequences than I imagined, but they happen to be really entertaining. Gong Li is in it, so that’s good. And for whatever reason, all the women in the movie wear corsets that seem to get tighter as the movie goes on. Gong Li defends the costumes as historically accurate. It gets kind of crazy. Probably worth an Albertson’s rental.
July 10, 2007