Long thought to be lost until its dramatic rediscovery ten years ago, Fei Mu’s classical costume drama paints the great thinker as an underappreciated prophet. Following the later years of his life, Fei Mu’s Confucius is a man tragically dismissed by his contemporaries, ultimately a victim of the unseemly warlord politics that dominated. Confucius may portray a man devoted to his ideals even as life tests him with increasing hardships, but it notably puts forth both Confucius the man and Confucius the saint.