![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This 1989 movie is, I believe, based on th same book as the upcoming Ady An series of the same name.
Set both 3000 years ago and in the 1930s, Yang Zimou (yes, Yang Zimou the director) plays the first Emperor's chamberlain. In his quest for immortality, the emperor has abbucted 500 youths to be experimented on. Can't have the emperor dying because of a bad elixir and all. But hey, at least one of these kids gets to be immortal alongside the emperor, right? I mean, all the others will be killed right after the emperor and the one questionably-lucky guy, but that's just bad luck.
Gong Li plays one of the abducted youths. Naturally, she and the chamberlain fall desperately in love. Mostly through staring at each other as he repeatedly thwarts her attempts to commit suicide. They do manage to work in a teeny bit of talking before engaging in e=sexytime in questionable places, though. Naturally, this is OMG NO FORBIDDEN, and they are sentenced to death. Gong Li managed to steal the actual secret to immortality, though, ande slips it to him right before throwing herself into a fire. Then he gets encased in clay and has one of the suckiest immortalities ever as a clay figurine in a cave.
Then the 1930s come along and Gong Li is a not-so-great actress on a film where the star and producer are actually treasure hunting criminals looking for the first emperor's mausoleum, and she ends up crashlanding a plane in the cave in a sequence best summed up as "she stumbles across criminal activities but doesn't know it but they decide to off her just in case but she doesn't realize that's what just happened" and suddenly has an armored guy declaring undying love and reacting to the strangest things.
It does a pretty decent job of balancing the crack, humor, and OMG DRAMA AND ROMANTIC TRAGEDY ZOMG! aspects, and avoids most of the awkward secondhand embarassment that can be a result of this kind of "fish out of water" story by having Yang Zimou wander around, fully armored, perfectly composed and cool as a cucumber, staring at people through his sunglasses like "What is wrong with these strange people? And why is my girlfriend all weird now?"
ETA: And that would be "Zhang Yimou." (Leave the error for prosperity.) Apparently, if you spend enoughtime looking for subbed versions of the umpteen Yang Clan adaptations, you lose the ability to type "ang" without adding a Y to the beginning.
Set both 3000 years ago and in the 1930s, Yang Zimou (yes, Yang Zimou the director) plays the first Emperor's chamberlain. In his quest for immortality, the emperor has abbucted 500 youths to be experimented on. Can't have the emperor dying because of a bad elixir and all. But hey, at least one of these kids gets to be immortal alongside the emperor, right? I mean, all the others will be killed right after the emperor and the one questionably-lucky guy, but that's just bad luck.
Gong Li plays one of the abducted youths. Naturally, she and the chamberlain fall desperately in love. Mostly through staring at each other as he repeatedly thwarts her attempts to commit suicide. They do manage to work in a teeny bit of talking before engaging in e=sexytime in questionable places, though. Naturally, this is OMG NO FORBIDDEN, and they are sentenced to death. Gong Li managed to steal the actual secret to immortality, though, ande slips it to him right before throwing herself into a fire. Then he gets encased in clay and has one of the suckiest immortalities ever as a clay figurine in a cave.
Then the 1930s come along and Gong Li is a not-so-great actress on a film where the star and producer are actually treasure hunting criminals looking for the first emperor's mausoleum, and she ends up crashlanding a plane in the cave in a sequence best summed up as "she stumbles across criminal activities but doesn't know it but they decide to off her just in case but she doesn't realize that's what just happened" and suddenly has an armored guy declaring undying love and reacting to the strangest things.
It does a pretty decent job of balancing the crack, humor, and OMG DRAMA AND ROMANTIC TRAGEDY ZOMG! aspects, and avoids most of the awkward secondhand embarassment that can be a result of this kind of "fish out of water" story by having Yang Zimou wander around, fully armored, perfectly composed and cool as a cucumber, staring at people through his sunglasses like "What is wrong with these strange people? And why is my girlfriend all weird now?"
ETA: And that would be "Zhang Yimou." (Leave the error for prosperity.) Apparently, if you spend enoughtime looking for subbed versions of the umpteen Yang Clan adaptations, you lose the ability to type "ang" without adding a Y to the beginning.