This widescreen epic was produced at the height of the Cold War referring to the failed Mongol invasion as a metaphor for the threat of communism and reified an idealized image of Japan as historically resisting aggression from the Chinese mainland.
The author provides a thought provoking literary history of the normative ideal of polygamy from the late Ming to the late Qing, countering the ideal with the theme of sublime love between two people. McMahon argues that the fantasies of polygamy had…