i am really quite intrigued by the new zhang yimou movie. all stories about assassinating the qin king have to do, in a way, with the story of jin ke ci qin wang (jin ke assassinates the qin king), and so to place three fictive characters at the centre of a movie a movie about the assassination of the qin king seems to me somewhat an off-centring. the visual effects will be splendid, of course, but of course, that wouldn't be all that impressive, today we practically demand that movies be visually stunning, and the fight sequences would be the least interesting, fancy as they might be, because we know this sort of thing too well, and books do it so much better than film, but i am very very eager to see what how the idea of story telling works in the movie.

i wonder when i can possibly go see it in charlottesville, but really afraid that they'll only show it at a few new york theatres and nowhere else. already there are rumours and complaints that miramax, the american distributers of the movie, are deliberately delaying its release and giving little promotion to the movie and sabotaging its oscar prospects. i don't much care about that but darn it, does that mean it won't come to charlottesville? that's not something i want to watch at home on vcd!