This documentary literally uncovers many fascinating facts about Qin (also the name of the state he came from and from which he launched his attacks on the neighboring entities, slowly building the country). Qin evidently was the natural son of the man who would become the Prime Minister and one of his closest confidants. That Prime Minister, Li Si, gave his favorite concubine, and Qin's mother, to the nation Qin's then-ruler, who believed the baby that would grow up to be the first Emperor was really his. The documentary leaves unanswered whether this was a power play of some sort or simply a natural turn of events that was not discovered until years later, leading to Li Si's exile late in life. After unifying his country, Qin set up a labyrinth of codes, known as legalism, that persists in one form or another (at least in the substrata of the national consciousness of China) to this day. He also started such massive public works projects as the first version of the Great Wall.

There's an unusual subsection devoted to a fictional mausoleum worker, bound into forced servitude along with literally millions of others, in order to make the Emperor's dreams of an afterlife palace come true. This particular part of the documentary is actually in some ways the most riveting, as we see this poor soul attempt to escape from bondage, only to be ripped from the arms of his wife and children, forced to live the rest of his life building what amounts to a highly adorned gravesite. China's First Emperor delves a bit into speculation that the sculptors fashioning the terra cotta army based their statues' faces on the workers, and so this man gets a brief respite when one of the sculptors chooses him as a model.

National Geographic has certainly upped its production values through the years, and the historical reenactments here are for the most part quite excellent. Though some of the sets are minimally dressed, costumes are all beautiful and a couple of the sets, notably the Imperial Palace where an assassination attempt occurs, are remarkable for a television documentary. While the cast is limited (one unintentionally funny moment occurs when the narrator talks about an army of 60,000 accompanying the Emperor on a trip and about 10 horsemen ride by), they bring an air of veracity to the project. The special has some beautiful cinematography and some very basic CGI animating the various levels of the mausoleum. There's also an evocative music score utilizing a lot of nice ethnic instruments like Chinese flutes.

While this effort may not be quite at the epic level of China's Great Wall, which I reviewed here recently, it makes a suitable companion piece to that National Geographic special while providing a wealth of historical information tightly knit around an individual who really isn't that well known. In fact, as the documentary makes clear, most of what little is known comes from accounts written two centuries after Qin's death. Kudos to National Geographic for presenting that information in such a visually arresting manner with some nice contrasting between various epochs as we are shown China 2,000 plus years ago and then the attempts to solve historical riddles in our present time.

The DVD

Video:
As with Great Wall, Emperor boasts a very nice, sharp 1.78:1 enhanced transfer with excellent color, saturation and clarity. While it doesn't have the same epic visual sweep of Wall, with more focus on intimate interior spaces, some of the crane shots of the terra cotta army are literally awesome.

Sound:
The standard stereo soundtrack has excellent separation and fidelity, with narration placed front and center and the excellent, through-composed underscore nicely balanced in the background.

Extras:
None are offered.

Final Thoughts:
Toward the end of this documentary, the Emperor's touring carriage is called a "dismal gilded cage," which can be seen as a metaphor for the whole country. This largely fascinating special reveals some of the reasons behind that country's insular traditions while illuminating modern archeological efforts to make sense of them more than 2,000 years later. Recommended.

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"G-d made stars galore" & "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?" ZMK, modern prophet