The Last Emperor (1987)
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Mark Peploe & Enzo Ungari
Starring John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying, Victor Wong

Features:

• Production notes
  
• Theatrical trailer

Anamorphic: No.

My Advice: Borrow It.

Pu Yi was the last emperor of China, crowned at age three and kept thereafter as a prisoner in the Forbidden City--a puppet ruler while the outside world went on without him. Eventually turned out of his home, seeing the outside world for the first time in decades--he has to go from being a tool of his keepers to being a tool of anyone who'll say what he wants to hear.

This is a heartbreaking little film. Little, what the hell am I saying? It's roughly three weeks in length from start to finish. And unfortunately, that's as much a source of heartbreak as the content of the film itself, which shows the life and death of a completely hollow man, who will go and do anything just because that's what he was taught and the only thing he's ever known. First a puppet of the eunuchs and others who kept him trapped within the Forbidden City, he becomes a puppet of the Japanese then a puppet of the Chinese Communists, who spend ten years trying to "convert" him--to convince him of what he did wrong. It's also disturbing how positive a light the Communists were shown in as they were trying to convert the poor guy--I guess we were supposed to think that Pu Yi was such a bastard that you would want Communists to step in and try to alter his life. Oh well, didn't work for me, anyway.

And although this film manages to actually educate about its subject matter, which is one of my main criteria for a good biopic, it manages to do so without being emotionally engaging on any level. It's hard to feel sympathy for someone who we know from the get-go is doomed, and further someone who helps destroy everyone around him--everyone from his right hand man (Dennis Dun) to his wife (Chen). Doesn't matter if that's the way he was raised, you can only get so much emotional play out of that. Bertolucci's ham-handed usage of gate imagery and the spoonfed ending don't help matters, either. About the only thing this film does have going for it are the performances of John Lone, struggling against the subject matter, and Peter O'Toole, who is brilliant as always.

Even worse is the fact that the DVD really has nothing of merit for a film that has garnered so much of it. Even the menu has a Velveeta factor somewhere near the top of the meter. If you enjoy the film, or just want to see lots of cool costumes and spectacle, it might be worth owning if you can get it cheap--but otherwise, try not to pay for it, would you?