The Last Emperor - Director's Cut

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie -- Bad DVD Quality!!
Review: The movie by itself deserves a FIVE STAR rating, as evidenced by its 9 academy awards. But there are major flaws in this DVD version. While the DVD contains additional unseen footage, the video & sound quality is worse than the VHS tape version. For a DVD disk, the picture is NOT sharp at all; it's very grainy and appears to flicker at times. The sound is presented in only two channel Dolby stereo sound. Even the VHS version had better sound, as it contained Dolby Surround.

Rating:
Summary: It was O.K. at protraying the emperor.
Review: This was an o.k. movie, but if any of my kids ever acted like that I'd smack them.

Rating:
Summary: excellent, well worth it
Review: This version fills in a lot of the gaps that the original cut had. Even after 12 years, I remember the movie had too many characters with not enough development. This version, along with better sound & color is almost 4 hours of pure gold!

Rating:
Summary: Very interesting
Review: This movie covered the true life story of China's last emperor. For the most part it was historically correct with great acting and scenery. The last scene in the forbidden city is a great one. A great film on a topic not often discussed. Well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie.... Awful DVD
Review: Enough comments have been made on the movie so I'll just tell you my opinion on the DVD edition. It is one of the worst DVD transcription I have ever saw. I really had the impression to watch a DivX. Do I need to tell more about the resolution? Only the english soundtrack is available (I wish the movie had been shooted in Chinese or Mandarin but that's not the point) and no subtitles. The DVD presents the director's cut which makes the movie 3 and a half hour instead of 2 and a half. The theatrical version is not available on the DVD... Otherwise there is no additionnal material.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible DVD Quality
Review: Great moveie, horrible DVD video quality. The transcription to DVD is a disgrace.

Rating:
Summary: Even More Ambitious Than THE GOOD EARTH
Review: THE LAST EMPEROR is a sweeping epic which focuses on the life of the Chinese boy emperor Pu Yi. The story begins before China becomes a republic in 1912. Pu Yi is used as a puppet by the new Chinese government and also by Japan after the Japanese invade Manchuria in 1931. The movie includes coverage of the years after World War II when he is imprisoned by the Communists before being released to work as an ordinary gardener. In some respects THE LAST EMPEROR reminds me of THE GOOD EARTH but it is even more ambitious than the earlier classic.

Three different actors play the part of the emperor as a child. John Lone has the role of the adult Pu Yi. Joan Chen performs the part of Pu Yi's wife and Peter O'Toole has the role of his tutor. Director Bernardo Bertolucci is also known for his direction of LAST TANGO IN PARIS.

THE LAST EMPEROR won nine Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Sound, Original Score, Editing and Costume Design. The main competition for Oscars in 1987 came from WALL STREET and MOONSTRUCK.

Rating:
Summary: great film, awful dvd
Review: I had the misfortune to buy this BEFORE I read the Amazon reviews and discovered that the DVD looked awful-a particular injustice for a film that won Best Picture. It's only 17 years old; there are films from the 30's that look great on DVD! I see though that in the U.K. they released a 2-disc version with commentary and both the original theatrical cut as well as the director's cut. I assume it's also restored and anamorphic and can only hope that we get an American version soon. The movie gets 5 stars, even at 219 minutes. The DVD gets 1 star, so that averages out to a generous 3.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtakingly Beautiful, Decadent and Misconceived.
Review: I revere every Bertoluccifs 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 Pfu Yi, and the alleged atrocities made to the Japanese Imperial Army, namely, gRape of Nankingh, etc. It is so because both Bernaldo Bertolucci and the producer Jeremy Thomas seem to have truly believed in the auto-biography of Pfu Yi, gFrom Emperor to Citizenh that written for propaganda purpose, and the Frank Caprafs U.S. propaganda film; gThe Battle of Chinah at their face values.
First thing is first, Chinese Communistfs gbrainwashingh undeniably exists. In the same year this film first came out, 1987, gFrom Emperor to Citizenh 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 editionh published by Foreign Language Press, BeiJing.
Jenner explains; gThe special consideration shown Pfu 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, Pfu Yifs gsuccessful thought reformh which made him gusefulh and able body to work like other ordinary people, that Bertolucci praises vigorously, was, in fact, gsomething of ritualh. Pfu Yifs fourth wifefs 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 Peoplefs Political Consultative Conference and the Communist Partyfs United Front Department. [cccc] He was even protected from the Cultural Revolution by Chou En-laifs intervention, and the local police kept Red Guards away. [cccc] Pfu Yifs presentation to foreigners as a living advertisement for the Peoplefs 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 Pfu Yi was not successfully remolded@into an ordinary citizen after all, but made a perfect gmouthpieceh of the Communist Party Propaganda Department.

Bertolucci may never have read this revealing version of the Pfu Yifs gauto-biographyh. (In fact, the book was re-written before it was published in 1964 by Communist Propaganda Department writers based on the gconfessionsh Pfu Yi and Pfu Chieh had made in the prison as outcome of gbrainwashingh.)
But, in any case, the directorfs knowledge on the so-called gRape of Nankingh 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 gobjectiveh 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 Nankingh. 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 Nankingh, the gnewsreelh in the film Pfu 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 gexecutionh scene of the Chinese civilian is, I am sure, taken from the famous propaganda film by Frank Capra; gThe battle of Chinah that shows, in fact, the executioners are the Chinese Nationalist Party Army. Because of the fact the scene was gtrimmedh to ghideh 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-eyeh of the Communist Party authorities they might have pretended to be pro-communist. In either way, this filmfs 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 Pfu 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.

Rating:
Summary: Not What You Think It Is
Review: The standard interpretation on "The Last Emperor" (and certainly the title suggests such an interpretation) is that it presents the end of aristocratic China to make way for the inexorable, modern movements of the 20th century, i.e. militarist Japan and communist China.

I wonder.

Unlike Pu Yi's 20th century counterparts, Pu Yi survives: the Japanese commander blows his brains out upon his country's defeat in WWII and the head of the communist detention center eventually becomes a despised outcast of his own system.

What happens to Pu Yi?

He becomes a gardener. However humble his destiny, he ends up doing what he wanted to do all along. And, despite his travails, his integrity and courage has remained intact: Pu Yi alone tries to defend the downfallen head of the detention center before the parade of pitiless Communist youth.

Ultimately, the film appears to see the aristocratic way of life as more flexible and durable than its political challengers in the 20th century. Whatever the shortcomings of his royal upbringing, Pu Yi knew when to bend, like the plants and trees that he so lovingly tended.