The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor
Promotional poster of The Last Emperor.
Directed by	Bernardo Bertolucci
Produced by	Jeremy Thomas
Written by	Mark Peploe Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring	John Lone Joan Chen Peter O'Toole Ruocheng Ying Victor Wong
Music by	Ryuichi Sakamoto David Byrne Cong Su
Cinematography	Vittorio Storaro
Editing by	Gabriella Cristiani
Studio	Recorded Picture Company
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	United States: November 18, 1987
Running time	160 minutes (theatrical) 218 minutes (television)
Country	China Italy United Kingdom France
Language	English Mandarin Chinese
Budget	$23.8 million[1]

The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures.^[2] Puyi's life is depicted from his ascent to the throne as a small boy to his imprisonment and political rehabilitation by the Chinese Communist authorities.

The film stars John Lone as Puyi, 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 for which the producers were authorized by the Chinese government to film in the Forbidden City in Beijing.^[1] It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

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 Soviet invasion of Manchuria) and put under Soviet custody for five years. Puyi attempts suicide which only renders him unconscious, and in a flashback, apparently triggered as a dream, Puyi relives his first entry, with his wet nurse, into the Forbidden City.

The next section of the film is a series of chronological flashbacks showing Pǔyí's early life: from his royal upbringing, to the tumultuous period of the early Chinese Republic, to his subsequent exile, his Japanese-supported puppet reign of Manchukuo, and then his capture by the Russian army - all of which are intermixed with flash-forwards portraying his prison life. There, Puyi 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.

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. Released from prison as a "reformed citizen", 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.

Puyi then visits the Forbidden City as an ordinary tourist, and meets an assertive little boy who wears the red scarf of the Pioneer Movement. The boy demands that Pǔyí step away from the throne. However, Puyi 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 - the cricket is still alive after 60 years. The little boy turns to thank Puyi, but sees that the Emperor has disappeared.

The film ends with a tour guide leading a tour in front of the throne. The guide encapsulates Pǔyí's life in a few sentences and informs the tourists of his date of death.

Cast

• John Lone as Pǔyí (adult)
• Joan Chen as Wan Jung
• Peter O'Toole as Reginald Johnston
• Ying Ruocheng as Detention Center Governor
• Victor Wong as Chen Baochen
• Dennis Dun as Big Li
• Ryuichi Sakamoto as Amakasu Masahiko
• Maggie Han as Eastern Jewel (Yoshiko Kawashima)
• Ric Young as Interrogator
• Vivian Wu (credited as Wu Jun Mei) as Wen Xiu
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Chang
• Jade Go as Ar Mo
• Fumihiko Ikeda as Colonel Yoshioka
• Richard Vuu as Puyi (3 years old)
• Tijger Tsou as Puyi (8 years old)
• Wu Tao as Puyi (15 years old)
• Fan Guang as Pujie (adult), Puyi's younger brother
• Henry Kyi as Pujie (7 years old)
• Alvin Riley III as Pujie (14 years old)
• Lisa Lu as Empress Dowager Cixi
• Hideo Takamatsu as General Ishikari
• Hajime Tachibana as Japanese Translator
• Basil Pao as 2nd Prince Chun, Puyi's father
• Henry O as Lord Chamberlain

Production

Bernardo Bertolucci proposed the film to the Chinese government as one of two possible projects - the other was an adaptation 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. At one stage, he scoured the phone book for potential financiers.^[3]

Thomas later remembered his experience shooting the film:

It was a very long and difficult period to set it up, full of nightmares, it was like a dark tunnel, to shoot for six months in China, not being able to stop, but out of it came this beautiful thing, and I have totally forgotten all the nightmares. I just think about what an extraordinary experience it was to be in China at the beginning of open doors, to be allowed to make that film there, with a filmmaker like Bertolucci, with whom I have managed to continue a wonderful relationship and friendship for more than twenty years now and six movies. So that was a big point for me in my life and career.

When you make films in different places, you need to find the mercenary warriors to help you make the film, because no man is an island. The best technicians came to work on the film, like Vittorio Storaro and the designer Fernando Scarfiotti, and James Acheson the costume designer. So a group of professionals plus a tremendous amount of support from Italy, because the Italian government and the Chinese were very close. So there was a bonding between the Italians and Chinese. In fact the British Council and British Embassy were rather hands off when we arrived there, they came to claim it later but... If an Emperor can become a gardener then what better, and one day they will tell this story. And then we came and we told that story. Of an Emperor, son of Heaven, ruler of a quarter of the world, one man, and he died as a gardener. So this was an irresistible and grand epic idea. It was terrifying but it happened.

The difficult thing about the success of that film was that it was a difficult film to emulate, and I have never been to that pinnacle of a certain type of film. And I doubt if I ever would or could make a film like that again. I don’t know how one would have made those films in the independent arena today. There were no digital shots, it was before digital, and filmed with real people.^[4]

19,000 extras were needed over the course of the film. The Chinese army was drafted in to accommodate.^[4]

Soundtrack

Release

The film was originally released by Columbia Pictures, although they were initially reluctant, and producer Jeremy Thomas had to raise a large sum of the budget independently. Only after shooting was completed did the head of Columbia Pictures agree to distribute The Last Emperor in North America.^[1] Columbia later lost the rights when it reached home video through Nelson Entertainment, which released the film on VHS and Laserdisc. Years later, Artisan Entertainment acquired the rights to the film and released both the theatrical and extended versions on home video. In February 2008 the Criterion Collection (under license from now-rights-holder Jeremy Thomas) released a four disc Director-Approved edition, again containing both theatrical and extended versions.^[5] Criterion released a Blu-ray version on January 6, 2009.^[6]

The Last Emperor had an unusual run in theaters. It did not enter the weekend box office top 10 until its twelfth week in which the film reached #7 after increasing its gross by 168% from the previous week and more than tripling its theater count (this was the weekend before it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture). Following that week, the film lingered around the top 10 for 8 weeks before peaking at #4 in its 22nd week (the weekend after winning the Oscar) (increasing its weekend gross and theater count by 306% and nearly doubling its theater count) and spending 6 straight weeks in the weekend box office top 10.^[7] Were it not for this late push, The Last Emperor would have joined The English Patient, Amadeus and The Hurt Locker as the only Best Picture winners to not enter the weekend box office top 5 since these numbers were first recorded in 1982.

Historical inaccuracies and omissions

Jeremy Thomas recalled the approval process for the screenplay with the Chinese government: "It was less difficult than working with the studio system. They made script notes and made references to change some of the names, then the stamp went on and the door opened and we came." ^[4]

Alternate versions

The film's theatrical release ran 160 minutes. An extended version currently available on DVD runs 218 minutes; cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and director Bernardo Bertolucci have confirmed that this version was created for television and does not represent a "director's cut".^[8] The television cut includes more footage from the stifling palace of Manchukuo. 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 Puyi 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.

References

External links

• The Last Emperor at the Internet Movie Database
• The Last Emperor at Allmovie
• The Last Emperor at Rotten Tomatoes