A Terra-Cotta Warrior
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Fight and Love with a Terracotta Warrior, also known as A Terra-Cotta Warrior, is a 1989 Hong Kong film based on the novel by Lilian Lee, directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark, starring Zhang Yimou and Gong Li. The film is about a forbidden love between a court lady and a soldier of the Qin Dynasty.
Gong Li plays the female protagonists Dong'er (the court girl) and Zhu Lili (the actress), and Zhang Yimou plays the terracotta warrior Meng Tianfang. This is one of the only two films where Zhang Yimou has a leading role, the other being Wu Tianming's Old Well.
Plot
The First Emperor searches for the elixir of immortality, and he despatches 500 teenage boys and girls to help him accomplish this task. One of his soldiers, General Meng Tianfang falls in love with one of the despatched maiden by the name Dong'er. When their forbidden love is exposed, the girl reveals she has found the elusive elixir and secretly gives it to Meng. The emperor orders their execution and the soldier is sentenced to death by being encased alive in clay as a terracotta warrior, only to be reawakened in the 1930s when a struggling actress, Zhu Lili, the reincarnation of the girl who remembers nothing of her past life, accidentally stumbles upon the tomb of the First Emperor. The soldier struggles to adapt to a new era while the two are pursued by archeological looters and thugs.
Cast
- Zhang Yimou as General Meng Tianfang
- Gong Li as Han Dong'er / Zhu Lili
- Yu Rongguang as Bai Yunfei
- Wu Tianming as movie director
- Lu Shuming as First Emperor
- Che Bok-man as Xu Fu / tour guide
- David Cheung
- Chiu Chi-gong
- Choi Hin-cheung
