A Terracotta Warrior (1989)

Last night I watched an old film-A Terracotta Warrior, it was made in 1989, twenty years ago.

The film looks apealing because there are two big shots in it: Zhang Yimou- the director of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, Gong Li- one of the most famous actresses in China.

Actually I dont like Zhang Yimou's films made in recent years, they are too commercial and lack of meaningful themes. I was not watching it closely at the very beginning, but graduatelly I could not lift my eyes from the screen and could not help laughing from time to time.

The story is a mixture of romance, fight, fantasy and plot. General Meng Tianfang saved the emperor Qin Shihuang and was promoted to be the emperor's security guard. The emperor was keen on immortality, and he followed a alchemist's suggestion to send out to sea 500 virgins and virgin boys for elixir. Meng Tianfang met one of the 500 maidens named Han Donger and they fell in love with each other. Han Donger accidentally knew that the elixir was made successfully and she took it away before the alchemists throwed it away. They didnt want to present it to the emperor as they knew clearly that the tyrannical emperor would kill them all once he got the elixir. They left as scheduled but Han Donger ran away to be with Meng Tianfang, of course she was caught by the soldiers.

The emperor was mad at the couple and decided to kill Han Donger, she died peacefully after kissing her lover, when she kissed him she put the elixir into Meng Tianfang's mouth. Meng Tianfang was so sad that he requested to be covered with mud and guard the mausoleum for the Emperor as a Terracotta Warrior.

It seems that the story is a sad one and it should end here, however, the fantasy has just began. After 3000 years, a monoplane fell into the mausoleum and woke Meng Tianfang up. He was, surely still alive because he took the elixir. He found a woman lying on the ground and thought she was his Donger without understanding that 3000 years have passed. He run into a lot of unbelievable situations (which were very funny) and saved the woman several times, the woman, Zhu Lili was very peacocky but she finally knew that Meng Tianfang was the one, the only one to love her. The following story was a bit sterotype as Zhu Lili died for Meng Tianfang when he tried to crash the plan of a grave-robbery group.

I have to admit that the idea was great in 1989! The film itself is also a work of art and Zhang Yimou/Gong Li performed greatly. Dont miss it if you look for good old films!