Love or Hate: The First Emperor on Screen — Three Movies on the Attempted Assassination of the First Emperor Qin Shihuang

In recent years, the image of China’s first emperor Qin Shihuang has made multiple statements on the notions of hero, Empire, nation states, history, and globalization. Navigating across media opera stage, television, and film screen alike, and across national borders produced within or outside China, the representations of this notoriously controversial figure manifest the changing vision of national imagination of China, China’s continuous attempt to position itself in the world, and its participation in redefining the revived notion of “Empire.”