Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThe Last Emperor: Director's Cut (1987)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
It won nine Oscars in 1987, but at the time Bertolucci's epic life of Harry Pu Yi seemed like a beautiful but hollow Fabergé egg. Storaro's majestic camera movements, the vast sway of the crowds of eunuchs or Red Guards and the opulent golden splendour of the intoxicating design were impressive trappings for the story of a passive, unsympathetic and hardly comprehending victim of the cruel ironies of history's forward march. Viewed 16 years on, one is reminded that it was made before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, and Peploe's script can be more clearly appreciated for its prescient, elegiac quality, more evident in this 227-minute cut, which contrasts more clearly the grey tones of Pu Yi's Communist 're-education' with his serial imprisonment within the ochre walls of the Forbidden City or the marble sarcophagus of his puppet throne in Manchuria. With its slow metronomic editing, Byrne and Sakomoto's score, the lack of histrionics (especially in Lone's surprisingly dignified Emperor), the film exudes a sorrowful, meditative quality, which justifies its seeming political remove and the director's abandonment of his earlier challenging aesthetics in favour of a more accessible, 'populist' symbolism. Do films tell of their times? The Last Emperor, having lost its Oscar crown to the heroics of The Return of the King, reminds us of a more ambivalent take on history and fate, and is the richer for it.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Cast: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Lisa Lu, Chen Kaige, Zhang Jungxiang full cast
Genre(s): Epics
Duration: 227 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now