The Last Emperor
Promotional poster of The Last Emperor.
Directed by	Bernardo Bertolucci
Produced by	Jeremy Thomas
Written by	Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring	John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Maggie Han, Ric Young, Vivian Wu, and Chen Kaige
Music by	Ryuichi Sakamoto David Byrne Cong Su
Cinematography	Vittorio Storaro
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	November 18, 1987 (USA)
Running time	160 Mins Theatrical 218 Mins Director's Cut 224 Mins Director's Cut
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Last Emperor is an Academy Award-winning 1987 biopic about the life of Pǔyí, the last Emperor of China. The movie was written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci, and directed by Bertolucci. Pǔyí is represented as the objectified plaything of powerful and mysterious forces, whether as an Emperor or as a war criminal.

The film stars John Lone as Pǔyí, with Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Maggie Han, Ric Young, Vivian Wu, and Chen Kaige. It was the first feature film to be authorized by the government of the People's Republic of China to be filmed in the Forbidden City.

Plot

The film opens in 1950 with Pǔyí's re-entry into the just-proclaimed People's Republic of China as a prisoner and war criminal, having been captured by the Red Army when the Soviet Union entered the Pacific War in 1945 (see Operation August Storm) and put under Soviet custody for five years. Pǔyí attempts suicide which only renders him unconscious, and in a flashback, apparently triggered as a dream, Pu-Yi relives his first entry, with his nurse, into the Forbidden City.

The next section of the film is a series of chronological flashbacks to Pǔyí's early life (his hot-house upbringing, unexplainable events including his brother's childish challenge to his status as the Emperor, his arranged marriage and so on), and flash-forwards to his prison life. In the prison camp, Pǔyí is shown newsreels of Japanese war crimes in Manchuria and the defeat of Japan, and he realizes his need to assume responsibility for his complicity in Japanese atrocities.

Pǔyí (Wu Tao) and Reginald Johnston (Peter O'Toole)

The concluding section of the film ends with a flash-forward to the mid-1960s during the Mao cult and the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Pǔyí has become a gardener who lives a proletarian existence. On his way home from work, he happens upon a Mao parade, complete with children playing pentatonic music on accordions en masse and dancers who dance the rejection of landlordism by the masses, aroused by rectified Mao thought. His prison camp commander is one of the "dunces" punished as insufficiently revolutionary in the parade. In a deliberately ironic scene, the last Emperor makes imperial remonstrance to the Red Guard students.

Pǔyí then visits the Forbidden City as an ordinary tourist, and meets an assertive little boy who wears the red scarf of the Pioneer Movement and therefore represents "the future". The boy demands that Pǔyí step away from the throne. However, Pǔyí proves to the little boy that he was indeed the Son of Heaven; as he sits on his old throne, he finds the cricket he kept as a pet as a child, and gives it to the little boy - magically, the cricket is still alive after 60 years. The little boy turns to thank Pǔyí, but sees that the Emperor has disappeared.

With just a small shift of the camera we are brought to a more modern day, after China had opened to the West, where a tour guide's klaxon (ironically emitting the tune of "Yankee Doodle") calls American tourists together in front of the throne. The guide encapsulates Pǔyí's life in a few sentences and informs us of his date of death.

Historical inaccuracies and omissions

Some characters in the movie (such as Pu-Yi's Japanese handler) are composites of actual characters, but most of the characters and the incidents correspond to actual people and events that occurred in Pǔyí's life. Pǔyí's younger brother, Pu Chieh, and Li Wenda, who helped Pǔyí write his autobiography, were brought in as advisors on the film.

Any reference to or mention of the period from 1945 to 1950 is completely absent from the film. It was during this time that Pu-Yi was held as a gulag prisoner by Stalin's Soviet Union. It was also during this time that he gave testimony and was indicted as a war criminal at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. When Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong had come to power in 1949, Puyi wrote letters to Stalin requesting not to be sent back to China. However, because Stalin wished to warm his relations with his "new political friend" Mao, he repatriated the former emperor in 1950.

Any reference or mention of Pu-Yi's later wives and other concubines (such as Tan Yuling, Li Yuqin and Li Shuxian) who he was together with after 1937 is also missing from the film.

Production

Bernardo Bertolucci proposed the film to the Chinese government as one of two possible projects - the other was a remake of La Condition Humaine by André Malraux. The Chinese preferred this project. During filming of the immense coronation scene in the Forbidden City, Queen Elizabeth II was in Beijing on a state visit. The production was given priority over her by the Chinese authorities and she was therefore unable to visit the Forbidden City.

Producer Jeremy Thomas managed to raise the $25 million budget for his independent production single-handedly.

19,000 extras were needed over the course of the film.

The Buddhist lamas who appear in the film could not be touched by women, so extra male wardrobe helpers were hired to dress them.

Alternate versions

When released theatrically the film ran 160 minutes; the extended version currently available on DVD runs 218 minutes. It includes more footage from the stifling palace of Manchukuo, showing how Pǔyí was blind, at first, to the way in which he was a puppet. An entire character cut from the theatrical release is the drug-addled opium pusher appointed Minister of Defense by the Japanese, who becomes a sort of demon when he surfaces in Pǔyí's prison camp, whispering the awful truth to Pǔyí at night. In addition, the extra footage shows more detail about the way in which Pǔyí was unable to take care of his own needs without servants.

The Japanese distributor of the film elected to remove stock footage of the Nanking Massacre from the film's initial theatrical release in that country. This footage was restored to later editions after complaints were lodged by the director.

Release

The film was released by Columbia Pictures, but though Columbia released it, Nelson Entertainment released the film on VHS and was later released on DVD by Artisan Entertainment.

Awards

The film won each of the nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated. Along with Best Picture it won Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Original Score, Best Sound and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film.

Popular culture references

• Olympic figure skater Chen Lu of China skated to the musical score of "The Last Emperor" in her 1995 world championship winning long program.

• The Last Emperor (末代皇帝) is also the title of a Chinese-made TV series about Puyi, made already in 1984, three years before the release of the Bertolucci film.

• The music video "From Yesterday" by 30 Seconds to Mars is based on the movie and has several scenes similar to the movie.

Cast

• John Lone - Puyi (adult)
• Joan Chen - Wan Jung
• Peter O'Toole - Reginald Johnston
• Ying Ruocheng - The Governor
• Victor Wong - Chen Pao Shen
• Dennis Dun - Big Li
• Ryuichi Sakamoto - Amakasu Masahiko
• Maggie Han - Eastern Jewel (Kawashima Yoshiko)
• Ric Young - Interrogator
• Vivian Wu - Wen Xiu
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa - Chang
• Jade Go - Ar Mo
• Fumihiko Ikeda - Colonel Yoshioka
• Richard Vuu - Puyi (3 years)
• Tijger Tsou - Puyi (8 years)
• Wu Tao - Puyi (15 years)
• Fan Guang - Pujie (adult)
• Henry Kyi - Pujie (7 years)
• Alvin Riley III - Pujie (14 years)
• Lisa Lu - Empress Dowager Cixi (credits appear as "Tzu Hsi")
• Hideo Takamatsu - General Ishikari
• Hajime Tachibana - Japanese translator
• Basil Pao - 2nd Prince Chun, father of Puyi
• Henry O - Lord Chamberlain
• Chen Kaige - Captain of Imperial Guard
• Zhang Liangbin - Big Foot
• Huang Wenjie - Hunchback
• Liang Dong - Lady Aisin-Gioro

External links

• The Last Emperor at the Internet Movie Database
• The Last Emperor at Rotten Tomatoes
• Images Jounal Review

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