The Last Emperor

It shouldn’t work. Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic drama about the Last Emperor of China shouldn’t work for one simple reason: The protagonist, Puyi (John Lone), is a passive character who doesn’t really do anything over the course of nearly three hours. Instead, we are watching him being carried along through his own story, a leader in name only with no real power beyond the walls of his home, incapable of even leaving until he is forcibly removed. An early scene in which he rides a bicycle around the Forbidden City only to be stopped at the gate by his own men, prevented from doing the one thing everyone else in China can do, illustrates just how pointless his station actually is. This kind of character shouldn’t be able to carry an epic period drama.

Bertolucci perhaps understood this because, along with his co-writer Mark Peploe, they have intercut this story between two timelines, jumping back and forward to show us what has happened to this emperor after World War II and how politics, circumstance, and his own questionable decisions have taken a boy crowned as emperor at the age of three and brought him down to the humblest of positions in the second half of his life.

Part of what makes this story so fascinating is that it is based on true events. Puyi reigned as the Xuantong Emperor of the Qing dynasty for a number of years before being outed. He would later return as the Kangde Emperor of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state during their occupation of the area during World War II. Ultimately, though, he would end up being captured by the Russians, turned over to the Chinese, and held captive as a war criminal, forced to undergo years of reeducation before he was finally granted amnesty by the Chinese Communist Party in 1959. The film is based on his 1960 autobiography From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Puyi, a book that was burned in the streets of China because it was translated into English and French, angering the Red Guards. Puyi himself spent his final years being persecuted, though sheltered from the worst of the abuse, for being a living representation of Imperial China before the rise of Communism. 

The film follows Puyi from the young age of three in 1908 when he is summoned to the Forbidden City by the dying Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi informs him that the previous emperor had died earlier that day and that he is to be the next emperor. At his young age, he doesn’t fully understand what any of that means and shortly afterwards, Cixi dies. 

Frightened and confused by his new surroundings, Puyi repeatedly demands to go back home, but he is denied this. And though he is surrounded by thousands of servants and palace eunuchs to see to his every need, he has no real friends with the exception of his wet nurse, Ar Mo. But as he grows older, their attachment is deemed inappropriate and she is forcibly removed from the Forbidden City. It doesn’t take long before he begins to resent being confined to the palace, though he is told that he remains emperor only while within the palace walls. Outside, where the Communist government has taken over, he would be just another citizen and be in mortal danger.

In 1919, Reginald Johnston (Peter O’Toole) is appointed as Puyi’s tutor, to give him a Western education. It is during this time that Puyi is coerced into getting married, selecting from a large range of potential brides. He chooses Wanrong (Joan Chen) for his wife as well as Wenxiu (Vivian Wu) as a secondary consort. After his marriages, Puyi sets about reforming the Forbidden City, expelling the palace eunuchs. But in 1924, he himself is expelled from the palace, exiled following the Beijing Coup. For a time, he lives a decadent life in Tientsin as a playboy and Anglophile, siding with Japan during the Mukden incident, a pretext for the 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Wenxiu divorces him, and Wanrong descends into opioid addiction.

By 1934, the Japanese invasion is well under way, and he is crowned once again as Emperor of the renamed state of Manchukuo, though this is just a puppet state of the Japanese. Despite his appointed title, his authority is undermined at every turn by his new overlords. When the Japanese surrender after World War II, knowing what fate awaits him, he tries to surrender to the Americans but is instead captured by the Russians, who turn him over to the Chinese.

Bernardo Bertolucci plays very close to the source material when it comes to telling this version of the story. He not only hews close to that autobiography but also the writings of Reginald Johnston, who also wrote an autobiography of his time in the Forbidden City. Both perspectives come through in the telling of this film, as does the friendship that developed between these two men over a long period of time. We see that relationship grow over the course of many years as the two come to trust each other and Johnston guides him through some difficult times in Puyi’s life. Peter O’Toole, who criminally has never won an Oscar in his long and respected career, wasn’t even nominated for this film. 

Bertolucci had wanted to make a film in cooperation with the Chinese government, something he would need in order to film at the real locations. He proposed two different films, this one and one based on La Condition humaine (Man’s Fate), a French novel about the failed communist insurrection and massacre in Shanghai in 1927. The Chinese government preferred The Last Emperor and granted him unprecedented access to film in The Forbidden City, something no Western film had been granted in the past. Because of this, there is an authenticity to the scenes that take place there that couldn’t have otherwise been accomplished. This kind of access is no longer granted to film studios, foreign or domestic, to help preserve the historical location and keep it open to tourists. 

Authenticity is important, but it needs to be in service of a compelling narrative. The Last Emperor has that, too, telling a story that would have otherwise been known mainly to historians and the native Chinese. Puyi was not a well known figure in the Western world. The movie changed that when it released in 1987, giving us an inside look at a culture that was still very much a mystery to audiences in the 1980s. Bertolucci has a clear eye for detail and an obvious love for this culture, showing it to us in a way that we can understand without watering it down and thus losing the luster of it all. But it also doesn’t glamorize things, either. Puyi is not a model emperor, even in his youth. His actions after being exiled from the palace show that he is lacking in certain aspects of basic humanity. He also learns quickly that he is lacking in some very basic abilities like tying his own shoes, having never had to do so before. His first reaction to being captured and arrested is to attempt suicide. After that, he just seems lost, unable to do much of anything but deny the charges levied against him.

This is a man who, despite having the lofty title of Emperor, is basically powerless. This is hammered home with the intercutting of his life in prison with his life in another kind of prison, the palace. In both cases, he is not free to leave and, despite his title, there are beggar children in the streets of China that have more freedoms than he has. The older he gets, the more irrelevant he becomes. We see that developing over time, too. That is the genius of this script; it keeps us interested in a character that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, including within the context of the story being told. This is capped off with a scene near the end when he, now a humble aged gardener, sees a young boy sneak into the palace and sit on the thrown, an act that would have seen the boy executed back when Puyi ruled the palace. Now the thrown is just a museum piece, a chair that symbolizes a past that has left him behind. 

This is a compelling drama about a character that really shouldn’t be so compelling. Puyi is a conundrum, a character with everything and nothing at the same time; a kingdom that existed only within his own walls. This journey that he goes on is not one of action but of inaction as he is carried on the waves of the world around him and not through any actions of his own. This is what it was like for the real Puyi and it is fascinating to watch it all unravel over time, a slave to the history going on outside of those walls. Bertolucci has brought to life these events and made such an enigmatic character as Puyi a fully fleshed-out character that we sit up and pay attention to.

Academy Award Nominations: 

Best Picture: Jeremy Thomas (won)

Best Director: Bernardo Bertolucci (won)

Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium: (won)

Best Art Direction: Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Bruno Cesari, and Osvaldo Desideri (won)

Best Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro (won)

Best Costume Design: James Acheson (won)

Best Film Editing: Gabriella Cristiani (won)

Best Original Score: Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, and Cong Su (won)

Best Sound: Bill Rowe and Ivan Sharrock (won)

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Release Date: October 4, 1987

Running Time: 163 minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, and Ryuichi Sakamoto

Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci