oh god...this movie was sooooooooo good.....i absolutely LOVED it!!! especially Jay Chou's character!!! he was soooo sweet......it was very sad at the ending when he like bowed down in front of his mother and begged her forgiveness and then he like killed himself right there....god, i almost started crying my eyeballs out......even though this is only Jay's second movie....i think he did a GREAT job at portraying the role......
I have never seen CYF pull off such an evil role like that before...him being the EVIL emporer was kinda new to me in a sense because i haven't seen him in any EVIL roles like this before.....but i think he also did very good playing the role....
Gong Li was absoulute gorgeous in this film....she looks like a queen in real life and my god, she IS a queen....she played the role amazingly well, transitioning from a loving mother to an obedient wife, to a revengeful woman.....it was quite a plot.....
the soundtrack is absoulultly WONDERFUL because Jay Chou sings the ending theme and also the Theme song...both are very good....a lot of chemistry between actors and that just made the story more realistic....wow....
i give it 4 stars out of 5......some parts could've been better....but this is a very good film by Zhang Yimou.....