Last Emperor

The 1987 movie, The Last Emperor, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, contains the moving history of Pu Yi. It tells of his life and brief reign in the Forbidden City where he was the object of worship by half a million people. It won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing and six other categories. Part of it was filmed on location in China.

Since this is one of my rare movie reviews, I'm going to try and concentrate on the things that got my attention, namely the costumes, the sets, and music. Anyone can, and it seems that many reviewers do, go and look up the full cast and other stuff on International Movie Database and then list them in bold. I don't do that kind of review so don't look for names followed by every picture the actors have been in. In some cases I'm not going to even give names.

Bernardo Bertolucci participated in the writing credits with Mark Peploe and Henry Pu-yi who wrote his autobiography, From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi. The book was published by Oxford University Press, 1987.

The Art Department and the Special Effects Department were both Italian to the core. The Makeup Department, which created the Chinese Court of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century and the sophisticated looks of the 1920s and 30s, as well as the drab look of the Communist characters was totally Italian, too. Costume Design was by James Acheson, and everyone looked equally wonderful in Chinese Court drag as well as the exquisite 1920s and 30s evening dresses, tuxedos and on to the colorless, gray "people's" uniforms.

Visual Effects were by Craig Chandler who is also credited with optical effects, which to me could seem to have been anything from lighting to fireworks or the Emperor's eyeglasses. There were lots of beautiful little Pekinese dogs running around underfoot and the whole mood of the various sequences was well thought out . . . everything from the dreary prison camp to the child's exotic life at court seemed right on to me.

David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su composed the original works of music that contributed greatly to the mood. Selections from Johann Strauss' Emperor Waltz were tossed in for good measure and nice effect in one scene. During the 1920s-302 sequences there were plenty of Bing Crosby songs played on portable Victrolas. Pre-recorded marching songs were played over loudspeakers in the prison scenes and Red Guard parade at the end of the movie is equally noisy with singing and accordion music.

The movie starts with Pu-Yi (played by John Lone) in a communist detention center in Manchuria. It is here that he has been sent to be re-educated according to Chairman Mao and the "people's" views; he must write down his crimes and read them aloud to his captors. As he tries to cut his wrists under running water in the bathroom, we witness an interesting flashback as we go back to Peking, 1908.

A tiny child enters the throne room of the Forbidden Palace to stand before the ancient Dowager Empress (a non-speaking part played by Lisa Lu). It's all hazy and glowing and mysterious. She dies as he stands there and a huge black pearl is put in her mouth. Well that ain't the way that happened, folks! I hate it when moviemakers (no matter how good they are) fudge with the facts and don't stick to the truth . . . even if I have to find out about it years later.

The pearl part is real, but the Dowager Empress died elsewhere and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is said to have taken it from her corpse when he desecrated her tomb. That's all in Dragon Lady and you'll have to get the book to find out the gory details as reported by Edmund Backhouse.

The child Pu-Yi is played by a succession of three child actors at ages 3, 8 and 15. I won't list them, as no one outside of China is sure to know who they are. Pu-Yi is raised by eunuchs; he is a Royal child and an Emperor, he can do no wrong. He still has a wet nurse way beyond the need for one. There are some amusing scenes of him playing with the eunuchs, and oddly enough, the time Pu-Yi spends in the Forbidden City turns out to be much like being in a prison, only it's a gilded one.

The viewer starts to see the juxtaposition of the two worlds, one ancient, royal and glorious, and the other changing, frightening and foreboding. The Republican Guard takes over and someone attempts to explain to Pu-Yi that he is Emperor in name only. He calls them all liars as his wet nurse disappears. The movie switches back to the Communist prison where he gets a lecture from the Governor (Ruocheng Ying in a well-played role). He still has his Chinese valet with him and he is told not to take care of him. Pu-Yi must learn to tie his own shoes. All the music recorded and has very loud singing with Chinese string instruments played over loudspeakers.

Back at the palace, the child matures and gets an English tutor in Reginald Fleming (played by Peter O'Toole). There is a very formal greeting ceremony with the teenage boy. In short order he gets an aluminum bicycle (there are some wonderful scenes of riding it around the palace), he's fitted for a pair of glasses, he gets an Empress-wife (Joan Chen) and a mistress (Vivian Wu).

After the wedding there is a very exotic and erotic scene with the two young people kissing (she's 17 and is doing all the work) while two pairs of hands reach into the frame of the picture and remove their clothes. They are about to make the rain with the wind. Shortly after that he gets a second wife (a mistress) and there's a wonderful scene at the palace where the two wives are learning to dance the two-step to European and American violin music.

Pu-Yi is getting independent at this point and wants to rule. He cuts off his queue (pigtail) and orders an inventory of the palace goods to see how much the eunuchs have stolen. There is a huge storeroom fire, all set by the eunuchs to cover up their thievery. They are expelled from the palace carrying their severed organs in boxes so that they can be buried "whole" when they die. The Empress and the second wife join the Emperor in bed where they have an innocent three-way under the silk while ever-present eyes watch through peepholes.

I don't specifically remember Pu-Yi changing his name to Henry, but the threesomes continue even as the Republican Guards show up and give them an hour to leave the palace. They are now state prisoners and we witness his abdication and final insult when they are packed into a huge limosine and driven out of the main gates never to return. The British will not take them in but the Japanese Legation does. From here on in we witness their decline into a decadent lifestyle.

The Japanese invaded three provinces of Northeast China in 1931. It was an area traditionally called Manchuria. In 1932 they founded Manchukuo and got Pu-Yi involved as regent and emperor while they exploited him and his family. Things begin to turn sour. The mistress leaves only to return as a drugged up spy in a leather aviator's costume. She seems overly friendly with the Empress and one wonders what directions those three-ways went. The Empress gets hooked on opium. She gets preggers by the Japanese driver and a Japanese doctor aborts the child. She ends up being carted off to a sanitarium or a mental hospital.

We are thrust into the Second World War via black and white AP film clips: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 1945 dropping of the H-bomb and Japan's surrender. The Chinese royal family is captured by Russian Communists and turned over to the Chinese and the Emperor is sent to the re-education camp. He is eventually released back to public life in 1959 to continue his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic. He was 53 years old and became a gardener at the Botanical Gardens.

The final sequence shows Pu-Yi wandering through the crowded streets of Peking while he watches a parade of Red Guards tormenting his old tormentor, The Governor of the Detention Center. The new Red Guard have him wearing a dunce cap and are sending him off for HIS re-education. Henry Pu-Yi tries to tell these youth that this is an honorable man but the ex-governor says nothing and is marched off to the same fate that Henry Pu-Yi had . . . or worse. All the while we hear the propagandist tunes played, this time, on accordions.

Henry Pu-Yi finds his way to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, now open to everyone. As he enters the palace he meets a child guard who asks who he is and what he wants there.

"I was the Emperor."

"Prove it," says the child.

Henry Pu-Yi sits on the throne and reaches down into the cushions. There he finds the cricket cage and the cricket that he hid there so long ago, The cricket crawls out to greet him. He gives it to the wide-eyed child who turns around to find him gone. We are left believing what we just saw was an illusion or a dream. The last scene is of a guided-tour of the Forbidden City, and even now the site is being readied and restored for the 2008 Olympics. The Chinese are well aware of what the tourists will want to see.

P'u-i (Pu-Yi) was born on February 7, 1906, and three years later when the Dowager Empress died, he was the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, the absolute monarch of China. It would seem obvious to anyone that he was born to rule a world of ancient tradition, but nothing prepared him or anyone else for the world of change that was waiting for him. There's an interesting site at http://www.royalty.nu/Asia/China/PuYi.html where you can read all about him.

Since I'm into China and the Communists, I'm going to have a look at Martin Scorcese's Kundun, the portrayal of the fourteenth Dali Lama with music by Phillip Glass. That may lead me to my first music review so watch out.

Ed Grover – September, 2004