BIG BUDGET: Gong Li plays a concubine in The First Emperor. NIPPON HERALD FILMS

Notably absent from the ranks of cognoscenti assembled for this year's Tokyo filmfest were heavyweight Asian filmmakers like mainland Chinese director Chen Kaige. Approaching the district where most of the films were being screened, however, festival-goers could not miss Chen's presence--splashed across a massive billboard advertising his latest glossy feature, The First Emperor (known in China as Assassin), which opens in Japan on Nov. 14.

While Chen has made his name with lush, highbrow epics like Farewell My Concubine, Emperor carries the director into new, unusually mainstream territory. The $20 million picture, co-financed by backers from Japan, France and the United States, stands as the most expensive production ever mounted in China. The budget shows in the vast and rousing battle scenes that punctuate the three-hour tale of the emperor Qinshihuang--the first to unify China's warring states. Predictably, critics have complained that the money also manifests itself in a limp, commercialized script and the soft-pedaling of Chen's normally rebellious instincts. The onetime art-film director, they say, has gone Hollywood.

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