The Last Emperor (1987)

The Last Emperor (1987)

Pretty good film biography about Pu Yi the last of the Emperors of China (more interesting than most documentaries). It won all NINE Academy Awards for which it was nominated like Gigi (1958) Best Picture and two for Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist (1970)) for Best Director & Screenplay Writing among them.

Based on the autobiography by Henry Pu-yi – the title character it’s a story of the boy that was chosen by the Dowager Empress (his aunt) to the exalted position before he was 3 years old on the day of her death mere months after the passing of her husband – the real last emperor of China. That’s because shortly after his ascension the country changed through the Great War – World War I various coups revolts and revolution such that Pu Yi was never really the ruler of China. He was more of a figurehead kept from leaving the Forbidden City until 1924 when he was "more or less" forced to live in ‘exile’ in the coastal town Tientsin now known as Tianjin where he was looked after and then used by the Japanese as yet another figurehead a puppet ruler over Manchuria aka Manchukuo prior to and during the Second World War. Some time after WWII Puyi was imprisoned in a Communist reeducation camp-prison until his pardon and release 10 years later in 1959. John Lone plays Pu Yi as an adult and Joan Chen plays his lovely wife Wan Jung. Peter O’Toole plays the British tutor Reginald Johnston who helped the confused boy find his voice and learn the ways (and indulgences) of the West.

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