Most famous in the West for the emotionally wrenching epic Farewell My Concubine (1993) - a movie made with the specific intention of reaching a wide, international audience - Chen Kaige has actually proved one of the most subtle of the Fifth Generation directors. But although at his best with more understated dramas like his classic King Of The Children (1987), commercial and political pressures have seen Kaige typically working with more saleable Chinese period-epic material since that breakthrough.

After a lacklustre reception for Temptress Moon at Cannes in 1996, Chen wanted to make a low-budget

urban comedy, but he was foiled by China's Film Bureau, who feared he would paint too controversial a picture of modern China. Instead, he ended up at the opposite end of the scale, making this $10 million saga.

Set at the close of the Warring States period (403BC to 221BC), The Emperor And The Assassin is a dramatic account of the time when China was made up of a number of rival states. The film focuses on Shi Huangdi, the leader of the Qin, who, in 221BC defeated the dominant Zhou and their rivals to establish himself as emperor of all China and unite all its factions under one rule.

The intense centralisation of the Qin Empire, along with heavy requisitions for war, saw Shi make many enemies. He was overthrown in 202 BC by the state of Han, which kept China unified until the "period of disunion" in 220AD.

Within this time frame, Kaige's film zeroes in on the relationship between Shi (Li Xueijin) and his lover, Lady Zhou (Gong Li). The two have known each other since birth - Shi was later raised in an enemy camp - but Lady Zhou rejects him when she can no longer stomach the violent acts he performs in pursuit of a unified China.

Her fury leads her to ask retired assassin Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi), another childhood friend, to kill the emperor. At first he refuses, but Lady Zhou's insistence, and the fear that his own home state of Yan will be absorbed by the new regime, persuades him to kill again.

The film was premiered in China's Great Hall of the People last year, where it met with a mixed reaction, drawing criticism from those who dismissed it as a rather loose interpretation of a well-known historical period. After a later screening in Japan, Chen decided to make some final adjustments in the editing room, apparently for length and clarity.

When challenged, Kaige admits to having taken certain historical liberties, but claims he is true to the spirit of the times. "When I was given the opportunity to bring to the screen a story that took place 2,000 years ago, I knew it would be a challenge.

"But at the same time, I was excited by the prospect of such an adventure. When shooting began I felt playful and light-hearted. I spent a lot of time researching the story and the historical background, but I had no intention of making a treatise on history. I took a somewhat Shakespearean approach to history in the sense that this film is a characterisation, not a historical reconstruction - a similitude as opposed to an exactitude."

As with Temptress Moon, where 1920s Shanghai was intended to reflect contemporary China's modernising cities, he hopes to find modern day relevance in the past. "What excited me most when I approached this story was its characters," he says. "They are people who left their mark in the annals of history. Although they lived two millennia ago, the characters are not so different from us - they are not mere symbols, they are real people.

"These people lived at the dawn of Chinese civilisation and had hopes and dreams of a bright future. But like us, they faced difficult choices: power versus freedom, war versus peace and love versus hate." Richard James Havis