An Overrated Masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 1999)

The new widescreen DVD of the "director's cut" of "The Last Emperor" (1987:*** out of ****) has nearly an hour of new material, but I'm not sure the added footage improves things too much. The movie looks great, of course, but I think the main reason why I've always found "Last Emperor" tedious going is that the title character is really a pretty dull fellow. While young, would-be emperor Pu Yi is playing with his eunuchs, taking lessons from his tutor, and rolling around in bed with his 2 wives (with a little unlikely bisexual titillation to liven things up), tumultuous, world-changing historical events are happening outside the walls of the Forbidden City. While Bertolucci's camera drinks in the sights of the emperor's opulent, self-indulgent life-style, we're held prisoner inside the palace along with him. Time after time, potentially exciting spectacle (like the burning down of the palace storehouse by the eunuchs) is happening offscreen. Pu Yi is never an active participant in his country's historical development, even after he is set up as the puppet emperor of Japanese-controlled Manchuria later in the story. At over 3 hours, the film becomes almost as vacuous as the leading character; the director seems to be more enamoured of pageantry than drama. Still, the film's subject is a unique one and it remains worthwhile, if ultimately a little trivial and overblown.