I envy Europeans and Americans who can watch the film without following the Chinese dialog with their ears, because it is painful to do: slow, unnaturally heavy, and over-deliberate.
But Westerners, on the other hand, would also suffer from the poor quality of subtitle translation, which manages to lose all the subtlety and double meanings that make a careful study of the film so much fun.
All in all, however, this is a humanist look on an important period of Chinese history, when the national entity first got intertwined with imperial order.
I have taken humanism for granted in a modern-day, "enlightened", world-renowned film director from China, until I saw Zhang Yimou's "Hero", which educates me how much infamous feudalism can still hide in that petty brain behind those acute eyes that are always on the watch for stunning visual effect. Chen Kaige, not without his own problems, here looks like a most liberal spirit in comparison.
