The Emperor's Shadow

The most expensive film ever made in China up to the time of its release, Qin Song (1996) is an historical epic of that country's first emperor. Jiang Wen stars as Ying Zheng, king of China's Qin province in the third century B.C. Determined to unite the land's six disparate kingdoms under his control, Qin has embarked on a campaign of conquest and unification. In the kingdom of Yan, however, Qin orders his men to spare the life of Gao Jianli (Ge You), a childhood companion whose mother cared for and even nursed both boys. Jianli is now a musician, and Zheng has plans for his old friend. Desiring a national anthem, Zheng commissions Jianli to compose such a tune, but the crafty and righteous Jianli has other plans, wooing Zheng's paralyzed daughter, Princess Yueyang (Xu Qing), who is promised to a high-ranking general.