ARTICLE

THE ASSASSINS: Bronze Sparrow Tower, Then and Now

By InCinemas / 10 Sep 2012 (Monday)

Source: Shaw Organisation
Three Kingdoms epic, The Assassins, is set to release in Singapore theatres on 28 September 2012. The movie tells the story of how Cao Cao returns to Bronze Sparrow Tower after defeating Guan Yu. Now at the height of his power, Cao Cao is surrounded by people who are planning to end his own life.

The story revolves about Bronze Sparrow Tower, and you can get a better understanding of it after the jump and do also see how you can stand to win tickets to The Assassins movie premiere!

In the trailer, assassin Ling Ju (played by Crystal Liu Yi Fei) tells us how she's been sent to Bronze Sparrow Tower.

"In the winter of New Reign of Peace Year 24, I was sent to Bronze Sparrow Tower. Everything they put us through was to kill one man, the most powerful man in the world."

The “most powerful man in the world” is referring to the owner and master of Bronze Sparrow Tower 铜雀台, Cao Cao. Chow Yun Fatt, who plays Cao Cao in The Assassin, points out that his Cao Cao is very different from those that came before on the big screen, because it's not a story about national affairs, but a story about his life at home.

Bronze Sparrow Tower Then
Where did Bronze Sparrow Tower come from?
Bronze Sparrow Tower has been a well-known location throughout history, and today, experts unanimously agree that it was built by Cao Cao. The name comes from a legend told in Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Cao Cao noticed a sparrow in a place with golden sunlight, and asked his advisors whether this was a good omen. They told him it was, so the next day he ordered his men to start cutting the trees and firing the tiles that would become Bronze Sparrow Tower.

Where was Bronze Sparrow Tower?
Bronze Sparrow Tower was located near today's Handan, in the Ancient Yecheng Ruins Protected Area, 17 kilometers west of Santai Village in Xialinzhang County. The ruins of Yecheng faces a stream, has its back to the Zhang River, and overlooks the plains, the perfect place for an ancient general to project his power.

What was Bronze Sparrow Tower like?
Historical records state Bronze Sparrow Tower reached 63 meters high at its greatest height, with 5-story buildings on top of the platform itself, a towering edifice that would have left visitors in awe. (Join The Assassins movie premiere tickets giveaway!)

The waters of the Zhang fed the moat around the tower, and flowed beside the city, its water shimmering in the sunlight. On the day Bronze Sparrow Tower was finished, Cao Cao held a banquet for his ministers, where he announced his intention to conquer the kingdom. That night, the father and son of the Cao clan raised their cups with hundreds of ministers and eunuchs, singing and drinking and dancing until dawn.

Bronze Sparrow Tower Today
The Tower Rises Again
The clanging gongs and celebrations of that night are long gone. Today, after 1,000 years of erosion from wind and rain, all that remains of Bronze Sparrow Tower are ruins. Tourists still gaze at the 1,000 square meter raised earth platform where it once stood out from the prairie, but in the end, they still leave speechless.

But even though the first is decimated ruins, the tower rose again for the movie. The producers wanted to recreate the chaotic Three Kingdoms era as realistically as possible, and naturally, studying the original was part of that. The Assassins art director Tian Yangping was tasked with bringing Bronze Sparrow Tower back to life. He read contemporary descriptions and examined the original site, and after 6 months of work, had blueprints and impressions of what it once looked like. Each of the original buildings took shape again – the separate observation platform, the corner watchtowers and crisscrossing halls, and raised footbridges between them, the bronze sparrow figure on the roof of the central tower with its wings spread, and the army barracks below, where thousands of troops and cavalry waited to meet enemies at a moment's notice. To make the film as historically accurate as possible, Bronze Sparrow Tower was reconstructed, at considerable expense. The grand architecture that resulted was likely even more detailed, and expensive, than the original,

“Do You Know Why I Built Bronze Sparrow Tower?”

Historical records show that Bronze Sparrow Tower was far more than just a pleasure palace where Cao Cao composed poems and made his home, it was the symbol of his power at its height. Excavations tell us that the palace was constructed with some very surprising features, and the film begins its story there. Chow Yun Fatt said, “Cao Cao had meetings and conferences here, he ate here, he lived here. It is more than just a place to rest and it was built with countless hidden traps and tricks."

In the last scene of the trailer, Cao Cao was seen making a remark that “The only reason I'm still alive is because I don't trust anyone!” That paints the outlook of a man whose phenomenal success came at the cost of a life of tragedy. Surrounded by people and conspiracies that want him dead, Cao Cao's feelings of loneliness and fear in his home that shields his life, is stunning in its complexity and ingenuity.

Why does Cao Cao fight so hard for power? What secrets does Bronze Sparrow Tower hold, and are they enough to save Cao Cao from the danger around him? These are some of the questions that have left people pondering for centuries and this movie, The Assassins, will attempt to have them answered.

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THE ASSASSINS: Bronze Sparrow Tower, Then and Now