Rating: 
Summary: Spectacular
Review: Many films are harmed with the addition of extra material. "Director's cuts" can be overlong, showy, or even confusing. "The Last Emperor's" added scenes, however, only enhance it. This brilliant epic is far more literate, interesting, and enlightening than most, revealing truths about human nature while educating its audience about some of the most important happenings in 20th Century history. The mind-blowing shots of China's Forbidden City may be the film's greatest single asset, but the sweeping score and excellent acting certainly don't hurt. Of course, you can't have a great epic without a great story, and the journey of China's last emperor "from emperor to citizen" (as he called his autobiography) is certainly that. But even a great story requires a great script, and the screenplay for "The Last Emperor" avoids bad dialogue and sentimentality, filling the actor's mouths with humanity and truth. In other words, "The Last Emperor" is an epic for the discerning viewer. Fans of "Lawrence of Arabia" will be elated while fans of "Titanic" will be mystified.
Rating:
Summary: Top-Notch In Every Way
Review: Do you like bio-pics? Are you interested in history? Would you like to see a movie that has DESERVEDLY won many Academy awards? Then what are you waiting for, get this movie! (LOL!)
Visually stunning, great writing, long but holds your interest throughout. A winner, but only one drawback -- not the kind of film you want to watch over and over. Maybe once every couple of years, but that's it. So, perhaps it only deserves 4 and 3/4 stars, but still, that's a heck of a lot of stars!
Rating: 
Summary: excellent film, terrible dvd
Review: what's the point of releasing a marvelous film on DVD if you do such a bad job? the dvd has no subtitles, the quality of the picture is terrible, colors and contrast level are all ruined. It's a shame the film makers actually let this happen to a masterpiece. I wouldn't purchase this DVD even if the manufacturer gave me money.
Rating: 
Summary: 20th Century China History in a nutshell
Review: The movie is basically a straight-forward biopic of the last emperor of China as the name implies. What sets this Oscar winning film apart is the adept direction by Bernardo Bertolucci and his equally talented crew (especially the DP Vittorio Stararo). The colours that fill the screen is amazing. This movie has to been seen in the 70mm format in an IMAX auditorium.
Production values aside, the only flaw in this film, is the deadpan performance of John Lone. He still represents the Western archetype of Asians in the Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu style of bad acting with equally bad accented English. The movie could have been better if it had been using the authentic Mandarin language (Pu Tong Hua).
Overall, this edition is a disappointment. No extras whatsoever, save for a trailer for the DVD director's cut and some production notes. 5 stars for the film itself but 1 star for the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Takes a while to sink in
Review: This film tells the story of Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China. It is a long, quiet, detailed film, that focuses on how Pu Yi was molded to completely not fit in with the times and the needs of China. He is a virtual bank-vault of contradictions. What if you are the Emperor of a country that no longer wants an emperor? What if you are raised being repeatedly told that you can have anything you want, but you are also a prisoner in your own home and not even allowed to be with your family? What if you are worshipped and doted upon a household of servants, who are actually parasites living off their royal duties? What if you are told you are being given a full education, but are never allowed to interact with other children, taught how to ride a bike, or allowed to see what is beyond the walls around you?
John Lone plays Pu Yi, and he manages to be both spoiled and pitiable, intelligent but ignorant, adept and inept, and admirable and occasionally loathsome. In short, he portrays exactly the person that Pu Yi's upbringing would create.
Peter O'Toole does his usual excellent job, as he portrays the English tutor of Pu Yi through his later childhood. The tutor teaches much but, unintentionally, pushes Pu Yi even further away from the role he must play.
The story starts with Pu Yi entering prison camp as an adult living in the Communist People's Republic of China. The film then alternates between the story of the former Emperor's experiences as a prisoner, and flashbacks of his childhood and history before the Communists took control. The flashbacks gradually catch up to the other story-line, and they become one. That sequencing was beautifully done.
The movie's ending, which I will not spoil, was startling to me. After a fairly long movie that was based in a harsh and bleak reality, there is a flash of suggested supernatural symbolism. I had to rewind to make sure I had seen it right. I had. It was amazing.
Overall, this film is a keeper, but only if you are a patient viewer.
Rating:
Summary: great film, awful dvd
Review: I revere every Bertoluccifs work tremendously, and this lavish film is no exception.
I was completely mesmerised by the view of the Forbidden City, beautiful period costumes of the Emperor and the Imperial family with which the director says he really cared about the historical accuracy to recreate as well as other things.
The historical accuracy is, however, not necessarily applied to the part of which Japan was involved. The foundation of Manshu-koku, (Manchukuo is the Chinese word) and the restoration of the Manchu Emperor Pfu Yi, and the alleged atrocities made to the Japanese Imperial Army, namely, gRape of Nankingh, etc. It is so because both Bernaldo Bertolucci and the producer Jeremy Thomas seem to have truly believed in the auto-biography of Pfu Yi, gFrom Emperor to Citizenh that written for propaganda purpose, and the Frank Caprafs U.S. propaganda film; gThe Battle of Chinah at their face values.
First thing is first, Chinese Communistfs gbrainwashingh undeniably exists. In the same year this film first came out, 1987, gFrom Emperor to Citizenh was re-published by Oxford University Press with new comprehensive general introduction and chapter introductions by W.J.F. Jenner, the translator of the original 1964 gdeliberately restricted editionh published by Foreign Language Press, BeiJing.
Jenner explains; gThe special consideration shown Pfu Yi and other high-ranking Manchukuo(sic), Japanese, and Nationalist officials cannot be regarded as typical of Chinese prison conditions. These were all people of potential value in winning over others in future, and political considerations saved them from the harsh justice that many lesser figures received.h And, Jenner continues, Pfu Yifs gsuccessful thought reformh which made him gusefulh and able body to work like other ordinary people, that Bertolucci praises vigorously, was, in fact, gsomething of ritualh. Pfu Yifs fourth wifefs account of his incapableness of looking after himself, even after his release of 1959, reveals some part of the truth.
His fifth and final marriage to a well qualified nurse was garranged by the Chinese Peoplefs Political Consultative Conference and the Communist Partyfs United Front Department. [cccc] He was even protected from the Cultural Revolution by Chou En-laifs intervention, and the local police kept Red Guards away. [cccc] Pfu Yifs presentation to foreigners as a living advertisement for the Peoplefs Government and the Communist Party began in 1956, while he was still in prison; and after his release he was often required to meet foreign visitors to China.h Those facts show that Pfu Yi was not successfully remolded@into an ordinary citizen after all, but made a perfect gmouthpieceh of the Communist Party Propaganda Department.Bertolucci may never have read this revealing version of the Pfu Yifs gauto-biographyh. (In fact, the book was re-written before it was published in 1964 by Communist Propaganda Department writers based on the gconfessionsh Pfu Yi and Pfu Chieh had made in the prison as outcome of gbrainwashingh.)
But, in any case, the directorfs knowledge on the so-called gRape of Nankingh is awfully wrong.
He believes; gThe Japanese killed 300,000 Chinese people in *2 or 3 days* in Nanking.h (How did he think it was possible as the matter of reality?)
In fact, however, the *200,000* civilian refugee in Nanking were well protected by the Japanese Army and decrease of the number never recorded by the gobjectiveh foreigners of the International Committee of the Nanking Safety Zone, who, by the way, are assumed by many people including scholars as gthe witnesses of the Rape of Nankingh. They, on the contrary, recorded *increase* of the population to 250,000 within a few weeks after the capture of the city. No one saw such barbaric massacre except the Chinese propagandists and, actually, some members of the Committee who were hired by the Chinese Nationalist Party as international propaganda agents. Some ordinary Chinese people (genuine citizens of Nanking) even condemned the Chinese soldiers for the wrong-doing in Nanking.
Apart from gRape of Nankingh, the gnewsreelh in the film Pfu Yi and his co-inmates had watched is full of errors and, I dare to say, pernicious propaganda.
The planes that bombed Shanghai International Settlement and killed thousands of civilian was actually the Chinese. (Page 352 of The China Year Book 1938, edited by H.G.W. Woodhead, North China Daily News) And, the gexecutionh scene of the Chinese civilian is, I am sure, taken from the famous propaganda film by Frank Capra; gThe battle of Chinah that shows, in fact, the executioners are the Chinese Nationalist Party Army. Because of the fact the scene was gtrimmedh to ghideh the true identity of the executioners, I think Bertolucci did know they were using propaganda material.
What I do not know is their purpose. It may have been to get permission to make the film in Beijing under ghawk-eyeh of the Communist Party authorities they might have pretended to be pro-communist. In either way, this filmfs authenticity was sullied and that is very a shame. Still, to me, this special edition is very interesting as a resource to understand the Cultural Revolution and the nature of brainwashing because it includes first-hand interviews of aging Pfu Chieh and the real life prison governor. Only one thing I would desire is subtitles, for the sake of clarification of the dialogues spoken by non-English speakers.
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