The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor Information

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. 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 Pu Yi, 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. It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Plot

The film opens in 1950 with Pu Yi's re-entry into the just-proclaimed People's Republic of China as a political 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 been in their custody for the past five years. Puyi attempts suicide, which only renders him unconscious. In a flashback, apparently triggered as a dream, Puyi relives his first entry, with his wet nurse at his side, into the Forbidden City.

The next section of the film is a series of chronological flashbacks showing Puyi'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 Soviet army "? all of which are intermixed with flash-forwards portraying his prison life. Under the "Communist re-education program" for political prisoners, Puyi is coerced by his interrogators to formally renounce his forced collaboration with the Imperial Japanese invaders for war crimes during their occupation of China during the war. Finally, after a heated discussion with the camp commandant and upon watching a propaganda film detailing the wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese, Puyi recants his previous stance and is set free and rehabilitated by the government in 1958.

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. By now, Puyi has become a simple gardener who lives a peasant proletarian existence. On his way home from work, he happens upon a Red Guard parade, complete with children playing pentatonic music on accordions en masse and dancers who dance the rejection of landlordism by the Communists. His prison camp commander, his only friend during his incarceration, is forced to wear a dunce cap and a sandwich board bearing punitive slogans, and is one of the political prisoners now punished as an anti-revolutionary in the parade.

Puyi later visits the Forbidden City as an ordinary tourist. There he meets an assertive little boy wearing the red scarf of the Pioneer Movement. The young Communist orders Puyi to step away from the throne. However, Puyi proves to the boy that he is indeed the Son of Heaven, proceeding to approach the throne. There, Puyi discovers the 60 year old pet cricket he kept as a child and gives it to the child. Amazed by the gift, the boy turns to talk to Puyi, but the emperor has disappeared.

The film ends with a tour guide leading a tour in front of the throne, where the guide sums up Puyi's life in a few, brief sentences, concluding that he died in 1967.

Cast

John Lone as Puyi (adult)
Joan Chen as Wanrong
Peter O'Toole as Reginald Johnston
Ying Ruocheng as Detention Centre 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 Wenxiu
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 Hishikari Takashi
Hajime Tachibana as Japanese Translator
Basil Pao as Zaifeng, 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 The Last Emperor.

Producer Jeremy Thomas managed to raise the $25 million budget for his ambitious independent production single-handedly. At one stage, he scoured the phone book for potential financiers.

Bertolucci was given complete freedom by the authorities to shoot in The Forbidden City, which had never before been opened up for use in a Western film. For the first ninety minutes of the film, Bertolucci and Storaro made full use of its visual splendor.

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.

Thomas later remembered his experience shooting the film:

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

Soundtrack

See The Last Emperor (album) for more information

While not included on the album soundtrack, the following music was played in the movie: "Am I Blue?" (1929), "Auld Lang Syne" (uncredited), and "China Boy" (1922) (uncredited).

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. 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. Criterion released a Blu-ray version on 6 January, 2009.

The Last Emperor had an unusual run in theatres. 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 theatre 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 theatre count by 306% and nearly doubling its theatre count) and spending 6 straight weeks in the weekend box office top 10. 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.

Awards

At the 60th Academy Awards, the film won nine Oscars:

Best Picture (Jeremy Thomas)
Best Director (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Best Art Direction (Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Bruno Cesari and Osvaldo Desideri)
Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro)
Best Costume Design (James Acheson)
Best Film Editing (Gabriella Cristiani)
Best Original Score (Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su)
Best Sound (Bill Rowe and Ivan Sharrock)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci)

Historical omissions

In Japan, the Shochiku Fuji Company edited out a thirty-second sequence from The Last Emperor depicting the Rape of Nanjing before distributing it to Japanese theatres, without Bertolucci's consent. The Rape of Nanjing "? in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were massacred by the Imperial Japanese Army "? is an event disputed by some Japanese, and a diplomatic stumbling block with China. Bertolucci was furious at Shochiku Fuji's interference with his film, calling it "revolting". The company quickly restored the scene, blaming "confusion and misunderstanding" for the edit while opining that the Rape sequence was "too sensational" for Japanese audiences.

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."

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". 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 Defence by the Japanese, who becomes a sort of demon when he surfaces in P"?yí's prison camp, whispering the awful truth to Puyi at night. In addition, the extra footage shows more detail about the way in which P"?yí was unable to take care of his own needs without servants.

The Criterion Collection 2008 version of 4 DVDs adds commentary by Ian Buruma, composer David Byrne, and the Director's interview with Jeremy Isaacs (ASIN: B000ZM1MIW, ISBN 978-1-60465-014-3). It includes a booklet featuring an essay by David Thomson, interviews with production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and actor Ying Ruocheng, a reminiscence by Bertolucci, and an essay and production-diary extracts from Fabien S. Gerard.