Like Bertolucci's "1900", a film full of great successes and some flaws.

Rating: 9/10 (12 July 2012)

I can understand someone loving "The Last Emperor" (as I do), or being bored stiff. Visually ravishing, it is an epic film about an empty man, the last emperor of China Pu Yi.
Raised from birth with no real experience of the outside world, trained only to fulfill his role as a symbolic figurehead, we watch Pu Yi swept along by the great tides of history in the 20th century east. Only after going through ten years 're-education' at the hands of the Chinese communists does he start to seem connected to the world and to himself.
The film forces a lot of challenging 're-thinking'. While clearly not forgiving the murderous excesses of the Chinese cultural revolution in the 60s, it does show that – at least in this specific case – the harshness of the Chinese communists was better for Pu Yi as a human being than the false kindness of all those that surrounded him for much of his life.
There are weak spots. Peter O'Toole - who I usually love - is at his most self-consciously theatrical as Pu Yi's western tutor, a tone that makes it feel like he's in a different film. Some scenes feel like pure exposition, with characters having conversations only so we the audience understands historical context. And it's sometimes hard to stay fully connected to a 165 minute epic about an empty man (although 'Citizen Kane' could be looked at that way).
But in the end, when Pu Yi finds some measure of happiness and wholeness as a simple gardener, there is a fascinating feeling of deep emotional reward for much of what felt flat earlier.
The Italian TV cut is almost a full hour longer than the feature version (which Bertolucci is now said to prefer), I find each have different strengths. I agree that the longer version is a bit "more boring" to quote the director himself, but it also fills out the story in important ways. By giving us more information about Pu Yi's childhood, and time in prison (even if some of those scenes do feel a bit clunky with exposition) his character feels much more fleshed out, less of a cipher. More a man, less a symbol. And some of the important changes both in the story and in his personality feel less sudden or confusing. Probably my personal 'perfect' version would split the difference, but I was very glad to see this alternate cut.