Documentary Description
When a vast
underground terra cotta army of thousands was discovered in Xi'an,
China, in 1974 it was a worldwide sensation and, for a while, a major
mystery. Row upon row of clay warriors, horsemen and even musicians
were positioned in various poses, all with distinct faces and with
different accoutrements adorning their uniforms. It soon became
apparent that these were afterlife protectors of the vast mausoleum
which housed China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who lived in the
third century B.C. National Geographic's Secrets of China's First
Emperor: Tyrant and Visionary
spends quite a bit of time on the Xi'an Terra Cotta army, using it as a
pivot point from which to explore both the history of the man who
unified nine warring states into the China we know today, as well as
focusing on modern archeological efforts to uncover the history of the
country as well as the Emperor himself.
This documentary literally uncovers many fascinating facts about Qin
(also the name of the state he came from and from which he launched his
attacks on the neighboring entities, slowly building the country). Qin
evidently was the natural son of the man who would become the Prime
Minister and one of his closest confidants. That Prime Minister, Li Si,
gave his favorite concubine, and Qin's mother, to the nation Qin's
then-ruler, who believed the baby that would grow up to be the first
Emperor was really his. The documentary leaves unanswered whether this
was a power play of some sort or simply a natural turn of events that
was not discovered until years later, leading to Li Si's exile late in
life. After unifying his country, Qin set up a labyrinth of codes,
known as legalism, that persists in one form or another (at least in
the substrata of the national consciousness of China) to this day. He
also started such massive public works projects as the first version of
the Great Wall.
There's an unusual subsection devoted to a fictional mausoleum worker,
bound into forced servitude along with literally millions of others, in
order to make the Emperor's dreams of an afterlife palace come true.
This particular part of the documentary is actually in some ways the
most riveting, as we see this poor soul attempt to escape from bondage,
only to be ripped from the arms of his wife and children, forced to
live the rest of his life building what amounts to a highly adorned
gravesite. China's First Emperor
delves a bit into speculation that the sculptors fashioning the terra
cotta army based their statues' faces on the workers, and so this man
gets a brief respite when one of the sculptors chooses him as a model.
National Geographic has certainly upped its production values through
the years, and the historical reenactments here are for the most part
quite excellent. Though some of the sets are minimally dressed,
costumes are all beautiful and a couple of the sets, notably the
Imperial Palace where an assassination attempt occurs, are remarkable
for a television documentary. While the cast is limited (one
unintentionally funny moment occurs when the narrator talks about an
army of 60,000 accompanying the Emperor on a trip and about 10 horsemen
ride by), they bring an air of veracity to the project. The special has
some beautiful cinematography and some very basic CGI animating the
various levels of the mausoleum. There's also an evocative music score
utilizing a lot of nice ethnic instruments like Chinese flutes.
While this effort may not be quite at the epic level of China's Great
Wall,
which I reviewed here recently, it makes a suitable companion piece to
that National Geographic special while providing a wealth of historical
information tightly knit around an individual who really isn't that
well known. In fact, as the documentary makes clear, most of what
little is known comes from accounts written two centuries after Qin's
death. Kudos to National Geographic for presenting that information in
such a visually arresting manner with some nice contrasting between
various epochs as we are shown China 2,000 plus years ago and then the
attempts to solve historical riddles in our present time.
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