A Terracotta Warrior


Reviewed by YTSL

As I write this review (in early 2003), my thoughts keep on drifting to two of the movies that are currently topping the HKSAR’s box office list.  One reason for this is that this near mythical 1990 effort happens to have the director of “Hero” as one of its leading lights (along with Zhang Yimou’s then paramour, Gong Li, and another Mainland Chinese talent in Yu Rongguang) and that 2002 blockbuster’s action director as its overall plus action director.  Secondly, and like with the more home grown “Infernal Affairs” as well as the People’s Republic of China’s official nominee for the 2003 Foreign Film Oscar, the Tsui Hark, Chu Muk and Hon Pui-Chu co-production that Lisa Morton revealed to have been “two-and-a-half years in the making” (in “The Cinema of Tsui Hark”, 2001:173) seems to have a cast and crew to die for plus guarantee that it would be a major commercial success and/or garner a bunch of film award nominations and other prizes.

Such is their illustriousness that I think it would be remiss of me to not mention that among the notables who worked on A TERRACOTTA WARRIOR were: scriptwriter Lillian Lee (whose other screenwriting credits include those for “Green Snake”, “Farewell My Concubine” and “Rouge”); co-cinematographer -- along with Lee Sun Yip -- Peter Pau (who probably is most famous these days for having lensed “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”); editor -- plus director --Marco Mak (someone who looks, among other things, to be Tsui Hark’s favorite collaborators); and executive producer Kam Kwok-Leung (another of those Hong Kong film industry Renaissance Men whose directorial credits include “Wonder Women”).  Additionally, here’s pointing out that this Zhang Yimou executive produced effort’s HKFA winning music composing team of Joseph Koo, James Wong and Romeo Diaz were able to call on Sally Yeh to sing the haunting theme song for this cinematic extravaganza that ended up with a total local box office haul of HK$20,991,782 and, consequently, the number 7 slot on the commercial hit list for a year that also saw the release of two other Tsui Hark-Ching Siu Tung collaborations in the form of “Swordsman I” and “A Chinese Ghost Story II”.
Due to the copy of this multi-genre plus -temporally situated film that I still take some joy in having managed to view being in a less than ideal state (e.g., pan and scan, with its English subtitles often cut off at the sides, and with night scenes that were often way too dark to my eyes) however, a significant percentage of A TERRACOTTA WARRIOR’S merits look to have been unfortunately lost to me (and, I’d imagine, others who have had access to this imperfect version of an apparently messy effort that, at times, brought to mind such as “Dream Lovers”, the Clarence Fok helmed “The Iceman Cometh” and at least one of the Indiana Jones movies but, at others, came across as an entirely one of a kind production).  Even more regrettably, there doesn’t seem much chance any time soon for most people to view in a better form that which also has been accessible on VHS tapes with clearer but unfortunately English subtitle-less pictures since it’s another one of those Asian works whose international distribution rights appear to have been snapped up by a Hollywood studio with no plans to ever re-release it, never mind in an un-cut and otherwise un-tampered form.
When it is considered that, for some people, Gong Li’s presence alone in a movie would be enough cause for them to want to check it out, this state of affairs can strike one as a crying shame.  At the risk of frustrating those of you who are members of this contingent, I’ll nonetheless go ahead and suggest that A TERRACOTTA WARRIOR ought to be high on your list to track down a copy of; and this not least upon realizing that “the (supposed) face of Asia” has more than one eye-catching role in it.  More specifically, the Mainland Chinese diva first appears as a passionate soul -- whose name is listed in the English subtitles as Snow but actually means Winter in Mandarin Chinese -- who falls, deeply and tragically, for the film’s protagonist in the early Qin Dynasty era portion of this time-travel themed offering whose (love) story spans more than two thousand years.  Next, she has a vastly more playful role as a flighty but nonetheless highly ambitious movie actress who answers to the name of Lili in its main, set in the 1930s, section.  Furthermore, here’s noting for the particular benefit of her admirers that Ms. Gong can be spied in yet another guise or incarnation before the offering -- whose actual conclusion came way after I first thought that it would -- finally draws to a close.
Unlike his female co-star, A TERRACOTTA WARRIOR’s unlikely main man has but a single role -- as a honorable warrior named Meng Tian Fong -- in this period piece with certain fantastical elements that the scientifically inclined might well find difficult to accept, even if only for the duration and sake of furthering the film.  However, upon the Qin Dynasty man’s ingesting an eternal life bestowing pill that was passed along to him by his more sacrificing lover by way of one last mouth-to-mouth kiss between them (before she got burnt alive and he was covered by hot clay to be turned into what appeared to be a permanent guardian of Emperor Shi Huang Ti’s treasure trove of a tomb), the noble character portrayed by Zhang Yimou gets provided with the means to survive long after his contemporaries plus effectively come back to life after the portion of his hard hearted lord and master’s final resting place in which he had been placed was spectacularly disturbed by an aeroplane’s crashing into it!
Although he makes his first appearance far later into A TERRACOTTA WARRIOR than Gong Li and Zhang Yimou, Yu Rongguang looks to have been accorded as much, if not greater, opportunity to impress as his more internationally renowned co-stars.  At the very least, his role in the film as a latter day matinee idol cum grave robber -- who is identified as Bart in this film’s English subtitles but more properly as Bai Yun Fei on its Mandarin language track -- looks to be more complex and generally showy than that of the auteur who ended up spending most of his screen time as this offering’s titular hero looking less like a dignified or even seriously love-lorn personage than a comically discombobulated fish out of water.  And even while the ancient emperor from whose Xian tomb emerged the now world famous terracotta army may come across as the most insidious character of all in this offering (whose drama to comedy to action ratio I can’t quite figure out but feel safe to say are all pretty high), this probably entirely fictitious early 20th century figure (who Yu essayed with more panache than I previously thought that he possessed) can seem to rival him in villainy plus is shown to have wrecked plus caused quite a bit of havoc of his own.


My rating for the film: 7.

Editors Note: There is a Mainland VCD of this film that is widescreen, but it has very tiny subtitles. The title is "Fight and Love with A Terracotta Warrior". I picked it up in NY's Chinatown a while back.