This luxurious film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci presents a fascinating slice of Chinese history set against the visual splendor of the Forbidden City. Here is the strange life of Pu Yi from his ascension to the throne at the age of three in 1908 to his death as a humble gardener in Peking in 1967. The dying empress dowager made him emperor — "the Lord of ten thousand years and son of heaven." He grows up inside the Forbidden City, tutored by eunuchs and a Westerner (Peter O'Toole). In 1924, Pu Yi (John Lone) and his two wives are exiled by the Nationalists. The last emperor becomes a decadent playboy, and his number one wife turns to opium addiction. The Japanese set him up as ruler in Manchuria during World War II, but he is at their beck and call. In 1950, Pu Yi is imprisoned as a pro-Japanese war criminal by the victorious Communists.
"For the Chinese," director Bertolucci has stated, " Pu Yi is less a historical story than a moral fable." The protagonist starts out as a youthful prisoner in the opulent cell of the Forbidden City which he is never allowed to leave. Then he is a pawn of the Japanese and finally a propaganda tool for the Chinese Communists. The Last Emperor is both an eye-opening epic and an intimate portrait of a man who never really tastes the joys of freedom.