A Terra-Cotta Warrior

In the Qin dynasty a guard falls in love with Dong'er, a court lady sent to look for the emperor's elixir of immortality. Their relationship is forbidden and the punishment is severe. The elixir keeps the man from dying, and he waits for centuries as a statue buried in the earth. When tomb robbers wake him in the 1930s, what he finds in front of him is a film actress carrying Dong'er's face. Tony Ching Siu-Tung directed the film from Lilian Lee's novel, with Tsui Hark among the producers. The most striking thing about it is the casting: the lead is played by Zhang Yimou, already known at the time as a director, opposite Gong Li. The telling carries the fantastical, the comic and the melodramatic all at once. The real discovery of the terracotta army is the story's starting point.