The film begins when Liu (Liu Ye) is sixty-one and is
emperor. Liu tells us in voice over that there are two enemies who have haunted
his nightmares all his life – Lord Yu and General Xin. His wife then enters,
dismissing his concubine, and tells him, “It is done.” He asks, “What
is done?” He is somewhat confused, perhaps due to age or illness. And a man
comes in with General Xin’s head. It’s an excellent scene, and gives us the
sense that at this point the empress is perhaps the one really in charge, as it
seems unlikely that Liu gave the order to have Xin executed (more than once, I
was reminded of Lady Macbeth).
The film then goes back to when Liu first saw both Lord
Yu (Daniel Wu) and General Xin (Chang Chen). At this point, Liu is forty-eight
years old; Lord Yu is only twenty-four, but is already in charge of an army in
the rebellion against the Qin Empire. In voice over, Liu tells us: “Xin and
I were just street rats. Our lifelong dream was to join Lord Yu’s army.”
Well, that can’t be accurate, as Liu is forty-eight and Yu is only twenty-four,
but perhaps it’s something mistaken in the translation.
We see the moment when Liu goes to Lord Yu’s camp to seek
men to help rescue his wife. An older man in Yu’s camp says he’s heard that Liu
is a dragon’s son and that clouds and thunder follow him. Liu tells him, “My
wife made that up,” and there is laughter until thunder claps outside. When
Liu rescues his wife he tells her that her dragon’s son rumor nearly got him
killed. That rumor plays a part in other scenes as well.
The relationship with his wife is an intriguing element
in this film. After he’s rescued her and sees that she’s been hurt, she
confronts him about a bastard son of his, and tells him, “As long as he’s
yours, I’ll take care of him.” There is definitely a strength in her
character, and you really feel for her at certain moments.
From there we learn that Lord Yu at some point holds
Liu’s wife hostage. We’re really in Liu’s head; we learn things as he remembers
them, thinks about them. So one memory may trigger another, not necessarily in
chronological order, and we move through different times. Plus, these are the
memories of an older man, so it’s possible they may not be entirely accurate.
It’s interesting the way the film presents information,
giving us certain details, and causing us to feel differently about characters
because of what we learn. At one point, for example, we learn about Lord Yu
dividing the land among those who had fought by his side rather than keeping
all for himself. And that puts us firmly on his side (though we’ve already
learned that at some point he holds Liu’s wife hostage). It’s interesting the
way the film can cause us to adjust our allegiances and empathy as we watch.
Though this is a historical film, its reality is actually
quite subjective. There is one scene, for example, that was a bit confusing.
And much later a character chastises the scribes, saying the scene as they’d
written it doesn’t make sense. And we see glimpses of that earlier scene. It’s
great, because we have to question what we’ve seen, and keep in mind the
perspective from which it is told. Plus, it makes a great point succinctly,
when he tells the scribes: “As scribes, you must respect history. Or
posterity will receive fiction instead of facts!” How much of this film
itself is fiction? Then, to make it even more interesting, the Empress enters
and tells him she sees he’s trying to rewrite history. So what is accurate?
And again, the film is largely from Liu’s perspective,
though at some point the narration by the Emperor stops. But it does return at
the very end. The Last Supper is a beautiful film, an intriguing look
into the ambitious and fearful heart of man.
The Last Supper was written and directed by Lu
Chuan. It was released as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on October 14, 2014, and
contains no special features.
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