The Last Emperor

Another movie that's been sitting on my DVR for several months was The Last Emperor, which TCM aired during 31 Days of Oscar but got left on my DVR until I was up to watching another long, long movie. Recently I had a few days off work, which gave me a good chance to get around to watching it.

I already knew, as I assume most people will, that the story is about Puyi (played as an adult by John Lone), the literal last emperor of China before the republican governent overthrew the Qing dynasty. Puyi ascended the throne as a child and was still quite young when he was deposed, and I somewhat expected that the movie would deal with a child emperor and the turbulent political situation going on around him up until the end of the empire. Well, the political situation remains turbulent throughout Puyi's life, but the movie more or less covers the whole life, although it does so going backwards and forwards.

The movie actually kicks off shortly after the Communist revolution came to power on the mainland in 1949. Puyi had already been a prisoner of war for some years, although the reason for having done so -- collaboration with the Japanese starting with their takeover of Manchuria and installing him as a powerless figurehead -- only gets discussed later in the movie. As the movie opens, Puyi had been held by the Soviets who joined the war against Japan after having beaten Germany; now that China is a communist country, they transfer Puyi and other Chinese POWs back to the PRC, where Puyi is to spend another decade as a political prisoner.

In flashbacks, we see Puyi as an actual child emperor, and then under a sort of house arrest that he doesn't seem to comprehend is actually house arrest in the Forbidden City. After some years of this, the people taking care of him bring in a westerner, Reginald Johnston (Peter O'Toole), to be Puyi's tutor and westernize him.

Johnston's teaching works pretty well, as Puyi is reasonably able to function in the upper levels of society when he's forced out of the Forbidden City after a coup and goes to Tientsin. He gets married to Wanrong (Joan Chen) and takes a mistress in Wenxiu (Vivian Wu), although it's more of a ménage à trois. It's suggested that he go to the west, but Puyi makes the fatal mistake of staying in the country he loves. When the Japanese invade in 1931, he sides with them in what is presumably a way to regain power, although they use him far more than he's able to use them.

Eventually Puyi gets released from prison and goes on to spend the last yearss of his life as a gardener before dying in 1967 during the early years of the Cultural Revolution.

The Last Emperor is a beautiful movie to look at, expertly photographed and having the big advantage of being one of the very first western productions to be allowed to film in the PRC. I read some stuff saying that the moving back and forth between various periods of Puyi's life was complex, but I didn't think it was difficult to follow at all. It would probably help to know a little more about the historical situation in China in that era before watching the movie, however, not that this is really the fault of the movie. As for the acting, Lone does a fine job as the adult Puyi, along with O'Toole as the tutor.

If The Last Emperor has one flaw, it was the ending, which felt tacked-on and utterly phony, the sort of thing a Hollywood production (this was actually a co-production between Italy, the UK, and the PRC) would do. Well, there are one or two short scenes before that that I didn't think were essential, but those were more minor than the ending. Not that the ending takes that much away from the rest of the movie, however; it's more that it felt a bit jarring after the quality of the first 150 minutes.

Still, if you haven't seen The Last Emperor before, by all means make it a point to watch it.