Like its American counter-part, the Japanese studio system was by 1962 in heavy competition with television. Hollywood had decided to lure viewers back to theaters by making films so big, that television in its infancy could not match them. Many of the biggest films of the era were historical epics, wildly varying in quality. Japan also ventured into making large scale period films, among which this one stands out, because it takes place in China. But then again, if John Wayne could play Genghis Khan, why shouldn't Katsu Shintaro play emperor Quin Shi Huang?
This film tells "the story of the first emperor". The quotation marks are there, because its just about as historical as you could expect from an old time Hollywood film. The film looks impressive. Daie studio has clearly put down the capital to make this a spectacle. The film runs two and a half hours, and boasts an impressive who's-who of Japanese film stars of the day, like Wakao Ayako, Yamamoto Fujiko, Yamada Isuzu, Ichikawa Raizo, Hasegawa Kazuo and Nakamura Ganjiro. The problem is that most of these people are wasted in parts that are way below their talent.
The film is very dialogue-heavy, which would be fine, if the goal of the film was to actually inform the viewer realistically about the period here depicted. Unfortunately the dialogue is not very good, and the plot has difficulty to get moving. Katsu, who is great as the balanced Zatoichi, is not very believale as Quin. His performance features too much yelling and I don't think the film manages to make the character feel like a real person. Some of the action sequences were fine, and so was the cinematography. However the whole of this film is very serious without being the least deep, so in the end, I actually prefer Duke's Genghis Khan adventure.
