And y'know, the whole film also touches on the habit Chinese have always had for rewriting history. My Dad and I had this talk on the ways the First Emperor is usually portrayed--he comes off way, way worse than here--and I've been studying Chinese history, which is taken much more personally by the Chinese than Westerners take Western history.

::nods:: seriously, and that caused aLOT of controvery when the movie came out. My mom was talking about how people were like "DON'T BUY THE MOVIE! Blasphemy!" to her for it, but she wanted to see the cinemetography. BUT!! That means she has a copy which means I get to vid! ::dances madly::

And I totally see what you mean by the fic angle, it's such a full story already...I adore how they made the assasins artists though, and the collasping of the books scene, because that punched in the corruption of culture thing that the people hated him for.