Other Titles • The Last Emperor • Der Letzte Kaiser (1987)
Synopses for The Last Emperor (1987)
1.
A stunning milestone in the history of cinema, this is director Bernardo Bertolucci's original director's cut, presented for the first time on video, the way it was meant to be seen.
John Lone stars as Pu Yi, emperor of China, who comes from a long history of tradition that is irreversibly altered by two world wars and fierce political upheaval. Guided by his English mentor (O'Toole), Pu Yi is forced to leave the lavish, protective walls of his kingdom and somehow find the strength to build a new life in a strange world he has always longed to explore, but has never really known. WINNER OF BEST FILM OSCAR IN 1987
(53 votes)
2.
Although it is 160 minutes long and shot with breathtaking scope and sumptuousness, Bertolucci's film is a story about claustrophobia. Pu Yi, the Manchurian emperor of China who ascended the throne in 1908 at the age of three, is a prisoner in the palace he rules over. Outside, real power changes hands with each coup d'etat. Pu Yi grows to manhood, is tutored by a Westerner (Peter O'Toole), and marries a gorgeous princess (Joan Chen). However, the adult Pu Yi (John Lone) is destined for a communist reeducation camp when the war is over. From start to finish, Pu Yi is a passive antihero who can never come to grips with the idea that the absolute power conferred on him as a child was only a mirage. The mistakes Pu Yi made trying to realize that power, especially collaborating with the Japanese during the war, provide Bertolucci with the chance to explore his familiar theme of collaboration and its moral consequences (as he did in THE CONFORMIST and 1900). In the end, Pu Yi seems to have reached a kind of peace, and the terrible waste of a special man's life disappears into a drab, grey-clad Beijing.
(51 votes)
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