It may be a little weird to reply to a message from so long ago, but I was glancing through Alana's blog looking for her review of your book Elantris and saw this.
I don't think Zhang Yimou intends the audience to take Hero at face value. The First Qin Emperor was, in history and in the movie, an incredibly charismatic autocrat supported by a political philosophy called Legalism, the central tenets of which were the strict obedience to superior officers and the crushing all dissent, especially all forms of political thought other than Legalism. As soon as he took power, the Qin Emperor instituted a national policy called "Burn Books and Bury Scholars," which did exactly what it sounds like. His reign lasted for fifteen years before self-destructing due to a classic case of Evil Advisor syndrome. Hardly "uniting all under heaven."
To my mind Zhang Yimou's Hero is not about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, but about the appeal of Order, even terrifying, brutal, autocratic Order, to those who have lived through periods of intense chaos and social upheaval -- and the degree to which people who have lived through such chaos will sacrifice things they have no right to sacrifice in order to achieve such order. Very pertinent to the modern Chinese political situation, I think.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-09-23 02:35 pm (UTC)I don't think Zhang Yimou intends the audience to take Hero at face value. The First Qin Emperor was, in history and in the movie, an incredibly charismatic autocrat supported by a political philosophy called Legalism, the central tenets of which were the strict obedience to superior officers and the crushing all dissent, especially all forms of political thought other than Legalism. As soon as he took power, the Qin Emperor instituted a national policy called "Burn Books and Bury Scholars," which did exactly what it sounds like. His reign lasted for fifteen years before self-destructing due to a classic case of Evil Advisor syndrome. Hardly "uniting all under heaven."
To my mind Zhang Yimou's Hero is not about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, but about the appeal of Order, even terrifying, brutal, autocratic Order, to those who have lived through periods of intense chaos and social upheaval -- and the degree to which people who have lived through such chaos will sacrifice things they have no right to sacrifice in order to achieve such order. Very pertinent to the modern Chinese political situation, I think.