visually stunning but overrated historical epic

Rating: Null/10 (10 December 2003)

first of all, the thing that killed this movie for me was the use of english instead of chinese or mandarin or whatever language they would have used. hearing whiny american accents coming out of the actors mouth's truly cheapened the film and made it obvious it was being catered for the american audiences. it was obvious bertolluci was trying for an oscar and he succeeded to his credit.
peter o toole i thought was just plain bad as the teacher, he overacted and didnt play a huge role in the film. in fact, most of the actors in this film shoud have been replaced by unknowns or at least genuine chinese actors. seeing the credits i noticed many of the actors had japanese names, which detracted from the realism. also, many were american actors that were recognisable from other poor films: the weird eyed old man from Big trouble in Little China and the dude from Rising Sun, just to name a couple. all these different factors truly detracted from the realism of the film.
the character Pu Yi himself was sooooo unlikeable, and i know he was supposed to be spoiled and selfish and unlikeable, yet wheres the enjoyment in seeing a 3 hour movie focusing on 1 character who really gives me the s***s? by the end i was hoping the chinese would start the water torture on him.
the best thing about the film was the visuals by far, which is hardly surprising since the DOP was Vitorio Storaro, one of the all time great cinematographers.
overall, i believe this film is definately worth watching, yet i would not have given this flawed film the best picture oscar...i dont know, maybe 87 was a bad year for films? it is overrated, despite the stunning visuals. 6.5/10