Bertolucci's Rise & Fall of a Blind Emperor Turned to Mediocrity

***Note: The following is a review of the Director's Cut version of The Last Emperor***

After the 1976 epic film 1900, despite some acclaim, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci was being hailed as a great, artistic director but one who had already caused trouble for 1900 with the film's original cut running at over five hours and featuring some material that was too controversial for Americans. After 1979's Luna and 1982's Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man, Bertolucci went on an extensive hiatus from filmmaking. During that hiatus period, Bertolucci met with British producer Jeremy Thomas to helm a highly ambitious project about the life of Aisin-Gioro "Henry" Pu-Yi, the last emperor of China before the country became a republic. The story of Pu-Yi is interesting in many ways since Pu-Yi became an emperor in 1908 at the age of three only to be abdicate the throne at age six and become a prisoner of his own palace. During the 1930s with a wife as his empress, Pu-Yi tries to retain his power as an emperor only to realize that he's become a political puppet and in the end, tried and imprisoned as a war criminal only to die in 1967 as a simple gardener.

Directed by Bertolucci with a screenplay written with Mark Peploe along with additional treatment from Enzo Ungari. The Last Emperor is the story of Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi told in flashbacks in a Chinese prison in the 1950s as he recalls his own life while trying to understand his own faults. Using the same epic approach Bertolucci used for 1900 along with the character-study treatment of other films like The Conformist and Last Tango in Paris, the film examines how a young boy who has only known a life of power and being served by thousands only to be confronted with reality. Starring John Lone, Joan Chen, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Vivian Wu, Dennis Dun, Maggie Han, Jade Go, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Fan Guang, and Peter O'Toole. Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar-winning epic of The Last Emperor is truly a masterpiece of epic proportions.

It's 1950 Manchuria near the Chinese-Russian border as a group of war criminals from World War II are being sent to a detention center. Walking to a bathroom all by himself is Aisin-Gioro "Henry" Pu-Yi (John Lone) who was once the emperor of China and has now become a war criminal. He looks on at 1908 at age three (Richard Yuu) is forced to be taken to the Forbidden City with his father Prince Chun (Basil Pao) and his wet nurse Ar Mo (Jade Go). The young Pu-Yi meets his grandmother, the empress (Lisa Lu) where she revealed on her dying breath, that the emperor has died and Pu-Yi is now the new emperor. With Chun returning to his home, Pu-Yi is forced to stay at the Forbidden City where he now rules. During a ceremony, he hears a cricket that belongs to one of his servants, Chen Pao Shen (Victor Wong) as he gives the boy the cricket. With eunuchs serving as his servants including Chang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and Big Foot (Liangbin Zhang), the little boy wonders when he will come home to his mother as Ar Mo tells the story of how she became his wet nurse.

After a suicide attempt in the bathroom, Pu-Yi is now accompanied to the detention center where he is forced to learn some rules but fortunately, his servant Big Li (Dennis Dun) and Pu-Yi's brother Pu Chieh (Fan Guang) are to stay with him in their cell. Pu-Yi remembers when he was eight-years old (Tijger Tsou) when he first meets his younger brother (Henry Kyi) while Pu-Yi meets his mother (Liang Dong) for the first time in three years. While befriending Pu Chieh, he looks on at the area in the Forbidden City that the widows of the previous emperor live as they look on to Pu-Yi's relationship with Ar Mo. Back in 1950 and in prison, Pu-Yi reads a book about the time he was abdicated in 1912 by the Republic of China where Pu Chieh is forced to remember the time as a child when he tells his older brother that he isn't the emperor anymore. It was up to Pao Shen to tell the young emperor the truth while Ar Mo is forced to leave by the decision of the widows and the Lord Chamberlain (Jiang Xi Ren).

During the prison detention center, the war criminals meet with the center's Governor (Ying Ruocheng) who hopes to reform many of the criminals as they confess their crimes. After the orientation, the Governor picks up a book by a Scotsman named Reginald Fleming "R.J." Johnston (Peter O'Toole) who wrote about his stay in the Forbidden city where he served as a tutor for the 15-year old Pu-Yi (Wu Tao) with the suggestion of Pao Shen. R.J. is aware of Pu-Yi's knowledge of what's going outside since he hears student protests over the turmoil in the Chinese government. For some of the eunuchs, high consorts, and Lord Chamberlain, Johnston's arrival brings an intrusion to their traditional values as Pao Shen is aware that the world is changing. Things get more troubling where Johnston brings bicycle for Pu-Yi where on the day he learned of his mother's death, he attempted to leave the Forbidden City to see his brother only that he couldn't. Emotionally distraught, Johnson learns that Pu-Yi's eyesight is weakening and needed spectacles.

Lord Chamberlain grants the permission for the emperor to wear spectacles as Pu-Yi wants to get out of the world and wants a female companion to accompany him. In a ceremony to choose wives, Pu-Yi picks two where one of them is a secondary consort. He marries a 17-year old woman named Wan Jung (Joan Chen) who too has a love for the modern world as she wants the marriage to be modern. Back in 1950, Pu-Yi whose plan was for him, Big Li, and Pu Chieh to write the same story of what they did is being interrogated by an interrogator (Ric Young) who accuses him of being a traitor, a collaborator, and counterrevolutionary.

Pu-Yi recalls the day as a young adult, he wanted reforms after learning that eunuchs had probably conspired to murder the previous emperor. He learned of Lord Chamberlain's theft to pawn off Imperial belongings as well as Chang and Big Foot. Pu-Yi decided to expel the eunuchs and Lord Chamberlain as Johnston, Pao Shen, Wa Jung, Pu Chieh, and secondary consort Wen Hsiu (Vivian Wu) look on. Hoping for peace at home, Pu-Yi, his family, and servants are forced out of the Forbidden City after another political coup in 1924.

During his interrogation, Pu-Yi begins to talk about the beginning of his collaboration with the Japanese since he had a fondness for modern things and the place that was very modern in the 1920s was Japan. Living in the Manchurian state of Tientsin, Pu-Yi now called Henry and Wa Jung, now Elizabeth meet up with a Japanese political minister in Masahiko Amakasu (Ryuichi Sakamoto). After hearing another political fight involving warlords in China, Pu-Yi hopes to regain power as emperor in the Manchurian state. Feeling her lack of input in her role as secondary consort, Wen Hsiu leaves as Pu-Yi's cousin Eastern Jewel (Maggie Han) arrives to bring news of warlords destroying the Imperial tombs. Then in 1931, just before Japan invades Manchuria, Johnston decides to return home to Britain.

During the interrogation, Pu-Yi learns of a book that Johnston wrote about China where Pu-Yi's claim that he was kidnapped by the Japanese was false in Johnston's book. Making things worse was the confession of Big Li as the Governor reveals that Johnston's conclusions were wrong but he wasn't lying. One month after Japan's invasion of Manchuria where it was called Manchukuo as Pu-Yi would hope to the use the power of the Japanese for some control. Pao Shen is aware that if Pu-Yi does this deed to become emperor again would be a betrayal of not just Manchuria, but China itself. Pu-Yi goes to Manchukuo where he is crowned emperor as a post-coronation party reveals Eastern Jewel's love for the Japanese as Elizabeth has become depressed and turns into an opium addict, a drug that Pu-Yi loathes.

During this moment of interrogation, Pu-Yi is forced to move into a cell with other war criminals that he know of including an opium producer named Chang Chinghui (Chen Shu) who became a prime minister of Manchukuo in 1935. After learning a horrific secret, Pu-Yi is forced to sign documents in order to protect his reputation as Elizabeth has become fragile and a full-blown drug addict. Back at prison after a few years, Pu-Yi is forced to learn about what he never knew he did and the people it hurt during Japan's invasion of China. After watching a film and recalling into his own memory, he does something that he never did in his entire life as the Governor realizes what he's doing. After 10 years in prison, Pu-Yi is released as he accepts a new life that's found him peace. On the final year of his life, despite this newfound acceptance, he is horrified at the country's new revolution as he sees someone he knows becoming a victim where Pu-Yi makes a final visit to the Forbidden City, as a tourist.

While a film like this is epic, the film does carry a lot of themes that Bernardo Bertolucci explores in what he aims for. It's a character study film but really, it’s a film about a boy who finds himself in a situation and not really being aware of the world outside of him but when he does step outside, he is forced to be confronted by reality and accept responsibility for what he's done. Throughout the film, Pu-Yi exemplifies his power in every way, even as a regular prisoner where he still have a servant. When that power is taken away, he is forced to recall moments in his life where he has corrupted himself to see why he got to the point of attempting suicide and all of these things. He is an emperor and it's a role that is filled with a lot of power and pride. On that moment early in the film, we see a man now filled with shame and dishonor. When he is in prison and is in a room full of war criminals that he knows, he realizes what he had done and not have known when he tried to be emperor again.

Now the aftermath of the film where Pu-Yi becomes a gardener harkens to another film, Being There by Hal Ashby about a simpleton gardener, played by Peter Sellers, whose simple, inane insights on the world is mistaken for political philosophy. In Pu-Yi's case, the thought of a man like him to become a gardener is a huge fall from grace but it's a role that Pu-Yi seems to accept and find peace in becomes it makes him human. Yet, what he sees with these young Red Communists abusing their power on a man that Pu-Yi knows. What happened a bit earlier reveals an irony on what this man says to Pu-Yi while Pu-Yi tries to defend him and what he sees is what he is reminded of earlier. That no matter what he used to be or what he could've done as an emperor, he will remain powerless to see the country that he ruled be turned into chaos. This leads to Pu-Yi to revisit his old home as he proves to a child that he used to be the emperor but not as the man who thinks of himself as an emperor but a simple man.

While some complain that the film (in its original 160-minute theatrical cut or 218-minute director's cut) lacks emotional punch. It's an approach that is suitable from an outsider perspective not that the film does lack emotion. There are emotional moments in the film from several characters while it's really an epic about a country and how foolishly they go from one revolution to another where the person that's supposed to be ruling is forced to sit in the sidelines watching behind his palace walls. Though it seems unclear that Pu-Yi himself would know what to do about running a country since he was made into an emperor as a child. Personally, I don't know much about the politics and Communism of China so I can't really say anything about the political context about the film. If there is one singular theme about this movie, it's corruption. How a country corrupt itself and how a man corrupts himself by betraying those who are loyal to him including his family while he himself gets corrupted into becoming a puppet.

The script that Bertolucci and Mark Peploe concocted is brilliant in its epic scale since it moves back and forth without losing its insight. While it's long and very multi-layered, the film brings in enough memorable moments and scenery from Bertolucci's epic scope to give this film a huge, lavish presentation. Fortunately with a smart and dramatic script, the film doesn't lose itself in that lavish presentation. The direction that Bertolucci brings reveal the changing times of China from Pu-Yi's early discovery that he might not be the ruler at all to his entrance into the modern world. The observant directing style with an epic vision is truly remarkable since it's Bertolucci capturing every moment of innocence to every moment that is filled with heartbreak and corruption.

Helping Bertolucci in his epic visual scope is his longtime cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Storaro's lush, exquisite cinematography reveals not just the shades of emotions in the protagonist of Pu-Yi but the evolving changes of the times. Storaro's look of orange sun and yellowish colors appear very early on Pu-Yi's coronation while he aims for more natural lighting in the darker, prison scenes. Even as the film progresses, so does Storaro's camera work as the shifts of colors change while in a few scenes on the exterior sequences for the 1920s, he brings a wonderful color of blue. While his lighting schemes go from extravagant to just using the simplest tools of lighting, Storaro brings memorable shades of color to the film as it stands out as some of the greatest work of cinematography.

Bringing out more of the visual scale of the film is production designer Fernando Scarfiotti and his team of art directors including Bruno Cesari and Osvaldo Desideri. The detailed look of the palaces that were all shot inside the Forbidden City are all wonderfully done while the look of the film is amazing. The coronation scene is famous from its look of the carpet walkway to everything that's in the palace. Even the other sequences from the 1920s and the Manchukuo times as well as the harsh, grittiness of the prison. Costume designer James Acheson also does great work into the lavish look of the clothing for the emperor in the film's earlier scenes to the shift of the 1920s with the right look of clothing as well as the dresses of Joan Chen which the clothes show the mood of her character while looking amazing. Even the makeup design of many of the film's early sequences, notably the wedding of Pu-Yi and Wan Jung shows the early, regal look of China by makeup designer Fabrizio Sforza.

Depending on the theatrical or director's cut version of the film, editor Gabriella Cristiani does an amazing job in tightening and cutting the film to a pace that isn't too slow or too fast for an epic film. It feels right while some scenes are needed for a right pacing as it's cut wonderfully. Sound designers Ivan Sharrock and Bill Rowe also do a great job in capturing the chaos that surrounds China and the scenes that involved the isolation of Pu-Yi as he is the center of attention throughout the entire film. Particularly when he's inside the palace or in his coronation in Manchukuo.

Then we have the film's score which is filled with an array of musical styles from bombastic, dramatic orchestral music to traditional, Asian arrangements. Doing the score are Su Cong, Talking Heads leader David Byrne, and renowned Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. One interesting fact that was revealed about the score was that Byrne was responsible for the richness in score pieces filled with Asian textures from the violin arrangements to the string instruments. Sakamoto meanwhile, went for the more traditional, dramatic score of the film that brings the tension and epic bombast of the film while Su Cong brings additional work to the film. It's one of the most memorable and amazing score pieces heard on film.

Finally, there's the film superb and large cast who all perform brilliantly in their restrained, masterful tone. There's some great yet small performances from the likes of Basil Pao, Lisa Lu, Jade Go, and Liang Dong as members of Pu-Yi's family while Henry Kyi and Alvin Ailey III do excellent work as the young Pu Chieh. Jiang Xi Ren, Liangbin Zhang, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa are excellent as Pu-Yi's distrustful associates while Victor Wong does great work as Pu-Yi's first tutor who seems to be the only person honest to Pu-Yi. Dennis Dun is wonderful as Pu-Yi's servant who is in conflict in his role as a servant and as a prisoner while Fan Guang is also good as Pu-Yi's loyal younger brother. Vivian Wu is great as the sullen, unsure Wen Hsiu as is Maggie Han as the slimy, ambitious Eastern Jewel. Ryuichi Sakamoto is great as a Japanese political minister along with a small performance from Chen Shu as another Japanese politician.

One of the best small performances in the film is Ric Young as the interrogator who has an eye for vengeance since his personal troubles of Pu-Yi's role takes him away from his job as the interrogator. Of the supporting performances, Ying Ruocheng comes away with the best as the prison's governor who plays the role of a mean, strict governor to his prisoners only to become the only voice of sympathy for Pu-Yi who knows about his troubles. Like the Peter O'Toole character, Ruocheng gives a riveting performances as a man who helps Pu-Yi finds his way only to give way to irony on his own true feelings. Peter O'Toole is magnificent as Pu-Yi's tutor R.J. Johnston with his warmth and wisdom who teaches Pu-Yi the way to be a gentleman while bringing him ideals that Pu-Yi would later misread. It's another great performance from the always wonderful O'Toole who will always do great work, no matter what film he's in. Joan Chen is amazing as Pu-Yi's wife Wan Jung with her eye-wielding innocence that falls apart from her husband's infidelity and her role as a woman knowing that she's trapped with no way out.

Finally, we come to the character of Pu-Yi which is played by four actors. The younger actors played by Richard Yuu as the three-year-old and Tijger Tsou are wonderfully natural in their performances as they play the role of not just an image of power but innocence while Tsou has to do more when he is confronted with the idea that he's not the emperor. Wu Tao is equally as good as the 15-year old Pu-Yi who has to do some of the more emotional moments in the film while having some great chemistry with Peter O'Toole in their scenes together. Finally, there's John Lone who does a great job in not just carrying the film but pulling out all the complexities of a character like Pu-Yi. His brilliant performance not only humanizes the man but makes him someone that people could relate to from beginning to end. Lone has great scenes with O'Toole, Chen, Ruocheng, and Sakamoto while having to play a dupe in some scenes as Lone truly gives a career-making performance.

When the film was released in late 1987, it was marked as a triumph for Bertolucci as the film won 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Adapted Screenplay for Bertolucci with writing partner Mark Peploe, Best Cinematography for Vittorio Storaro, as well as awards for Editing, Sound, Costumes, Art Direction, and Score for Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, and Cong Su. While The Last Emperor proved to a peak for Bertolucci but follow-ups including 1990's The Sheltering Sky and 1994's Little Buddha proved to be difficult to match. While Bertolucci never matched the success of The Last Emperor, he continued to make films with some success recently with 2003's The Dreamers.

The 1998 Artisan DVD for the director's cut version of the film which adds over an hour of additional footage to the movie with a final running time of 218 minutes features wonderful 2.0 Dolby Surround Sound. For a film by Bertolucci, it has to be seen in a widescreen format which in theatrical 2:35:1 aspect ratio. While the visual transfer does work on many scenes, it is however spotty on some sequences. The special features doesn't add much to desire since it only features cast and crew information, production notes that includes trivia and tidbits on the film as well as a trailer for the director's cut version of the film, not the actual theatrical trailer in what the DVD package claims. It's a decent purchase for those interested in the film but doesn't add enough flair to what is desired. Serious fans will hope that Bertolucci (despite his reluctance towards DVDs) will create a superb edition for The Last Emperor that will include not just the original theatrical film but the director's cut as well along with a remastered visual feature and remixing for the film along with some special features.

In the end, The Last Emperor is truly one of the finest epics to come out of the 1980s and one of Bertolucci's finest masterpieces. With a great film crew that includes producer Jeremy Thomas, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, production designer Fernando Scarfiotti, editor Gabriella Cristani, and the music work of David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Cong Su. This is a film of true technical brilliance while being helmed by a superb cast including John Lone and Peter O'Toole. Anyone interested in Bertolucci's work will definitely find this essential though once a DVD for the original film comes out will appreciate the brilliance that Bertolucci does. Whether in its original theatrical presentation or the director's cut, The Last Emperor is truly an achievement in cinema.

Bernardo Bertolucci Reviews:

The Conformist (1970):

http://www.epinions.com/content_157109358212

Last Tango in Paris (1972):

http://www.epinions.com/content_135414386308

1900 (1976):

http://www.epinions.com/content_298316238468

The Sheltering Sky (1990):

http://www.epinions.com/content_400947711620

Stealing Beauty (1996):

http://www.epinions.com/content_231297814148

Besieged (1999):

(Coming Soon)

The Dreamers (2003):

http://www.epinions.com/content_135411764868