Bernardo Bertolucci does the nearly impossible with this sweeping, grand epic that tells a very personal tale. The story is a dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the emperors of China. It follows his life from its elite beginnings in the Forbidden City, where he was crowned at age three and worshipped by half a billion people. He was later forced to abdicate and, unable to fend for himself in the outside world, became a dissolute and exploited shell of a man. He died in obscurity, living as a peasant in the People's Republic. We never really warm up to John Lone... in the title role, but The Last Emperor focuses more on visuals than characterisation anyway. Filmed in the Forbidden City, it is spectacularly beautiful, filling the screen with saturated colours and exquisite detail. It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. --Rochelle O'Gorman [show more]
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Director's cut (featuring over an hour of extra footage) of Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar-winning epic about the last imperial ruler of China. In 1908 the three-year-old Pu Yi is made Lord of Ten Thousand Years, but is soon forced to abdicate. He is, however, kept on as a symbolic figure and educated by an English tutor (Peter O'Toole) until he is thrown out by the new government. Now in his late twenties, Pu Yi takes his two wives to Tientsin and lives the life of a playboy.
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