In the early years of anno domini, China experienced one of its most formidable and brilliant rulers in the personage of Qin Shi Huang, or ‘The First Emperor of Qin.’ By all accounts a visionary, Huang is now credited with laying the groundwork for the Chinese empire, setting forth the plans for the Great Wall (the first ruler to do so) and establishing the largest burial site on Earth – a site guarded by an “army” of 7,000 terracotta soldiers.
This program explores Qin Shi Huang’s life and impact on successive generations, with a wealth of CGI animation and dramatic reenactments. It also depicts the ways in which a man whom many regarded as a walking terror could paradoxically qualify as one of China’s greatest benefactors.
Well done. They don’t make a lot of dim guesswork like many history docs. They talk about what’s known as probably true, the artifacts, and some legends. The end result is an incredible history story. True stories are almost always better than fiction.