Clearly, I'm a black person (specifically, I'm a mix of African, Native American and Irish), and I am so saddened every time I come across a newsstory that discusses the same
plot about a black person being shot by a trigger happy, non-black, police officer.
After the usual rigamarole
about shooting challenges and directorial perfectionism, someone asked Zhang Yimou what he thought the film was
about, which he either answered honestly or deftly dodged by asserting that what he wanted
people to take from the film, long after they've forgotten the
plot, are the memories of certain images: two women in red fighting among swirling yellow leaves, two sorrowful men flying and dueling on a lake as still as a mirror, a sky of
black arrows, a desert moonscape haunted by lonely figures in white.