THE LAST EMPEROR (1987) - The Epic in Mourning

Now he's growing up, he may wonder why he's the only person in China who may not walk out of his own front door. I think the Emperor is the loneliest boy on Earth.”

PETER O'TOOLE - Reginald 'R. J.' Johnston

Melancholy and solitude, the two perfect words that capture the whole ambiance throughout the cinema masterpiece that depicts life story of the last king of the Chinese feudal era named Puyi.

Let's put aside what people believe the "real" historical story of Puyi. This movie, made by a foreign director, contains no political purposes of bringing the propaganda to his viewers.

The Last Emperor was produced by an English production company under the direction of the Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, capturing life of Puyi - the king of the Chinese feudalism - from the day he was born to the eleventh (and final) Qing dynasty ruler and ended up as an ordinary citizen under communist regime in China.

The movie is mostly based on Puyi's autobiography written before he passed away, along with the perspectives of a director himself about a Chinese emperor of nothing.

The only foreign character in the lead role's group playing Puyi's Scottish tutor is whom I believed takes the role of the movie director himself, a person outside of all the political turmoil that once occurred in China during the time having the guts to propose the most unbiased assessment over Puyi and his pointless life as a "new lord of the 10,000 years" in the history of feudal China.

The cut scene captures a little innocent boy, little Puyin, wearing a golden imperial robe being kowtowed by a thousand of his subjects, implying an overcast prescience

Trapped in the Forbidden City:

Puyi was the successor of the Guangxu Emperor and chosen by Empress Dowager Cixi to become emperor at the age of 2 in 1908.

For the next seven years he wasn't allowed to see his biological mother during his coronation. The real power at that time was carried on by his father. It was not until 1912 that he was forced to abdicate in the transfer of power from the imperial household to the government of the new Republic of China.

Puyi was eight when Empress Dowager Longyu endorsed the "Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor." The movie's footages continue to show his upbringing in the early life when being locked in the four walls of the Forbidden City that is interwinded with his imprisonment in the 1950s.

The most striking moment depicts his life would be when he, at the age of adolescence, desired to see the outside world.

Acknowledging his biological mother's death, he went to the main gate that separates the inner city and the contemporary life outside the palace. However, he was stopped by his own guards who had been ordered to prevent him from going outside. Being an emperor with no power in hands even just to allow himself to see his mother for the last time, he threw harshly his favorite little pet towards a gate, boiling over with silent indignation.

The rest of scenes go on with the series of chronological flashbacks showing his late teen's period: the two marriages with two consorts Wanrong and Wanxiu and his entry to adulthood after he was expelled from the palace in 1924.

He had lived in a self-indulgent life with his two wives as an Anglophile and Japan's ally under the protection of Japanese over the following period of ten years until 1934. His second consort Wanxiu set her free by divorcing Puyi during the time while his queen consort Wanrong remained next to him in the later time, being administered by the Japanese.

During the following couple years, Puyi was the puppet king of Manchukuo under the control of Japanese authority with his political supremacy underestimated by surrounders.

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) ended the colony of Japanese army over the vast area of China, putting down their power and bringing it back to the Republic of China. Puyi became the war criminal that was kept and educated in the "Communist and Re-education programme" for over a decade before being released in 1959 due to his rehabilitation and surrender to the government.

The ending flashes forward to 1967, the historical period of the Cultural Revolution under the rise of Mao's regime.

Puyi was then an ordinary citizen, a simple gardener living in serenity witnessing another political milestone of China that streamed over his senior years.

He came across his prison camp commander, back in the days resuscitating his life from his once attempt to suicide and greatly helping him during his education in labor camp. The commander was one of the political prisoners getting punished just like him for the new anti-revolutionary wave.

In the last scenes, Puyi bought a ticket to the Forbidden City, where he was raised and upbrought in his early life, now becomes a historical landmark of the 10,000-year feudal dynasty of China.

Puyi meets and has a talk with a little boy wearing the red scarf that presents the Pioneer Movement in that period.

As Puyi told a boy he was an emperor of China, a boy told him to prove his title. Puyi then proceeded to approach the throne and took out of the old golden dragon throne a 60-year-old pet cricket that he was given by a palace official on his coronation day when he was eight.

The film closes with his disappearance and the introduction of a tour guide in a modern day saying of Puyi:

"This is the hall of supreme harmony where the emperors were crown. The last emperor to be crown here was Aisin-Gioro Puyi. He was three years-old. He died in 1967"

Cinematography:

There are no films or movies but The Last Emperor, the first Western film that is allowed to have settings and photograph collection inside the actual Forbidden City, all approved by the Chinese government during the time. The cast is varied worldwide, featuring different famous actors and actresses namely John Lone from Hong Kong, Joan Chen from China, Peter O'Toole from England, and Ryuichi Sakamoto from Japan, etc.

Once having a glance over only a few opening footages, you surely have no wonder as to why this blockbuster takes over NINE ACADEMY AWARDS mostly for the majestic cinema art and wonderful adapted screenplay and many other awards for years.

The screen in which little Puyi was summoned to the deathbed of Empress Cixi in the Forbidden City must be one of the two most impressive scenes, along with the splendor of coronation ceremony no later then.

Though Bernardo is an Italian filmmaker with no Chinese cultural root, he made every detail become outstandingly portrayed from the hair done and costumes of each servant to the mysterious wicked red ambiance covering the concubine's palace.

Little Puyi, restlessly, plays around with no acknowledgement of how his life would soon be tied up into the harshest time of political turbulence.

The second most majestic scene is undoubtedly an accession ceremony when Little Puyi from the dragon throne ran innocently towards a billowing sepia drapery (a golden color symbolizes for The Son of Heaven).

Only a few seconds after he played around with a curtain, it's blown aside displaying the incredible sight - thousands of the imperial minions including eunuchs, academics, future generals, and ministers in ceremonial dress kowtowing their little Majesty.

This deifying symbolic value does not last long in his childhood.

Puyi becomes his own prisoner trapped inside his house, having been prohibited for years until he was in the middle of adolescence. He was informed nothing about the political transition that happened outside the four walls and remained to act as a spoiled infantile man-child during his early life.

It's ironic that though Puyi was kept away from his parents since two and granted power to do whatever he wants because he is "The Son of Heaven," he turns out to be an emperor of nothing. His power is maybe accessed over the eunuchs in the Forbidden City, nothing more.

There are three milestones in Puyi's life that are the most valuable depiction of this desperate emperor's life. The first one is when little Puyi was taken away from his family; the scene in which the 10-year-old Puyi ran after his wet nurse Ar Mo, the only family he got in the City, is made to leave him; and finally the moment when he powerlessly and heartbreakingly chased after his first queen Wanrong who in his later adulthood was taken away by Japanese to leave Puyi alone.

Times after times, Puyi consecutively witnesses his loved ones, one by one, leave him behind without having the last farewell.

Later then, he once again was thrown in between the two sides of political regimes and capitalized by the Japanese to physically betray his own homeland. Puyi was so innocent to think he would take over his power in Manchukuo again. He did really put his faith into his desire of reforming the new better China under his reign one more time.

He gambles on the Japanese army, turning back on his people as he believes Japanese would not do anything harmful to his nation. But his intuition turns out to deceive himself. Puyi had no consciousness about how cruel Japanese are to his hometown until he was shown the detailed documentary of wartime atrocity committed by the Japanese during the his time in re-education camp.

The most powerful imagery would be in the last scene when the aged, weakened emperor representing the imperial era confronts the young, energetic boy representing the new Maoist era of China.

The moment when Puyi steps down from the dragon throne giving a little boy a container from which 60-year-old cricket crawls out is the beautiful image, marking the end of the confinement to Puyi's life and also the announcement to the official transfer of power from the 10,000-year historical monument to the modernization of China.

The passing on of the cricket, which was given to the Emperor as a boy as a symbol of loyalty and respect, represents the spirit and traditions of the Chinese people. The Emperor vanishes, representing the permanent change that China has undergone, unable to ever go back to the old ways. (Reviewer)

The movie ending scene truly brings tears to my eyes. He, as old as the cricket in a jar hidden around his dragon throne, was a prisoner in his whole life and used as nothing more than an ornament. He never had any decision on his own, never lived for himself for once with his own will and was easily discarded when having no value to the war of power.

Puyi unstoppably witnesses his loved ones leave since the day he was born without power to protect his happiness. The worst of all, Puyi might have lived in shame and remorse for the rest of his life by either purposefully or un-purposefully letting Japanese massacre his people.

His whole royalty life is the humiliation and an ironic epic whose hero is a war criminal of the whole Chinese history. Puyi in real life is seen as the coward betrayer of his country. And his whole life of despair, this important period of history, is briefed into only one sentence of a tour guide:

He was three years-old. He died in 1967.

*Criticism:

Many people oppose the movie when thinking this cinematic Puyi is way too far from his real-life characteristic that the history features. In fact, the King Puyi is depicted as a cruel selfish arrogant coward who sacrificed other people's life for his own sake.

From my point of view, I believe in the objective side of one's history that what is not witnessed by my own eyes only takes the half of the truth. As a common saying:

History is not grounded in facts, rather it's the winners' interpretation of them that prevails. The victors can force their narrative down on the people.

Credit:

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