In one of the climaxes of the film, the king states his belief that through music he can "control the minds and hearts of the people", echoing Mao Zedong's Yan'an talks of 1942.

At the premiere of the film on 7 June 1996 in Beijing, director Zhou Xiaowen noted: "Chinese rulers have always wanted to control our spirit.

"[2] After The Emperor's Shadow was released in five major Chinese cities, it was banned by state authorities without any clear reason being given.

According to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, Gao Jianli was a friend of the assassin Jing Ke, who fails in an attempt upon Ying Zheng's life.

The director Zhou Xiaowen defended his film by saying that it was an exploration of ideas and values for the present day and was not intended as a strictly historical depiction of the First Emperor.