The Last Emperor is a biographical film co-produced by The Italian Yanke Film Company, the British Dao'ao Film Company, and the Chinese Film Co-production Company, directed by Bernaldo Bertolucci, and starring Zun Long, Chen Chong, Wu Junmei, Peter Otto, etc. The film was released in Italy on October 23, 1987, and its 3D restoration was released at the Shanghai International Film Festival in China in June 2015.
The last emperor
The film tells the story of the last emperor of China's feudal society, Ai Xinjueluo Puyi, who spanned 60 years from becoming emperor to finally becoming an ordinary citizen.
In the winter of 1950, Puyi (Zun Long), the deposed emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was escorted back to China from the Soviet Union as a war criminal. After the train arrived at the Manzhouli Railway Station on the Sino-Soviet border, Puyi thought that it would be difficult to save his life, so he slipped into the bathroom and tried to cut his wrists and commit suicide.
Puyi committed suicide by cutting his wrist in the mirror
The director of the Chinese War Criminals Management Institute (Ying Ruocheng) notices that the situation is different, and knocks on the bathroom door, knocking on the door makes Puyi fall into memory.
And it is also the director who saved Puyi, so as to avoid Puyi's death.
One winter night in 1908, the captain of the Qing Palace guard knocked on the door of Prince Shuo's palace and took the 3-year-old Puyi into the palace for upbringing according to the will of Empress Dowager Cixi (Lu Yan) and prepared to take over. When the enthronement ceremony was solemnly held at the Taihe Hall, Puyi found a small cage containing grasshoppers on the body of the chancellor Chen Baochen. His interest in grasshoppers was obviously greater than that of a few thousand ministers of culture and military affairs kneeling at his feet. After ascending the throne, Puyi became the least disciplined and lonely child in the world.
Grasshoppers
Puyi woke up from his memories. He was also rescued by the management director and began his life as a prisoner on trial and reform.
And this kind of film narration where memories and reality are intertwined has greatly promoted people's viewing experience. The film focuses on Puyi being asked to write about his life experience in the management office, interpolating his memories of his past life.
Puyi who is pampered and treated well
Puyi has no friends in the palace, only his brother Pujie, the rest of the time can not be separated from his own mother, lonely him, not familiar with the world, he once called his mother a butterfly, he still has to eat milk when he is a teenager. In his opinion, all the things in the palace were of no interest to him, and the only thing that interested him was the small cage containing the grasshoppers. As a child, he did not harvest the so-called joy of childhood in the palace, but on the contrary, developed the habit of self-esteem from an early age.
Puyi's grandmother
The transformation of his life came precisely from Johnston's entry into the palace.
In 1919, the British teacher Johnston was hired as Puyi's foreign teacher to enter the palace, and the 14-year-old Puyi began to accept the influence of Western culture. In the 4 years of teaching in Zhuang Tu dun, he was highly respected by Puyi, and the friendship between teachers and students was deep. He later fled to Tianjin with Puyi and took care of him until 1931.
Johnston and Puyi
Johnston is a teacher who really thinks about Puyi, and he once used his position to force himself to defy public opinion and bring puyi eyes. And puyi sent his first bicycle in his life. He passed on progressive ideas to Puyi and taught him a lot of knowledge that he could not learn in feudal morality and etiquette. It played a major role in the shaping of Puyi's personality after that.
spectacles
Came to the Xinhai Revolution, retained the so-called Qing government, the nominal reservation, but Puyi was placed under house arrest in the backyard, at that time, he did not even see the last side of the nurse due to the opposition of the subordinates due to the death of his mother. It can be seen that the state of mind of the people in the palace has been vicious to the point of horror.
Puyi was determined to reform, but suddenly understood that at this time, he was still the emperor of the slaves in the backyard, but he was no longer the emperor of the world. Even Puyi wanted to thoroughly investigate the finances in the palace, and at night someone burned down the warehouse. It can be seen how small its influence is. Who really cares about him?
Later, knowing that Yuan Shikai was in power, Puyi and his family were driven out of the Forbidden City, which was his home, the place where generations had lived, and when he left, it realized his dream and escaped from here, not knowing whether he was helpless or happy before he left.
Leave the Forbidden City
But what he didn't know was what the Japanese had accepted him for in the days when he was displaced and fled.
He was accepted by the Japanese consulate, and in Tianjin, he was constantly in contact with the upper class, he had forgotten his wishes, he was not willing to abandon the throne like this, he was not willing to abandon the world. But in Tianjin, he played himself as a stupid boy, mixed in the upper class, with the protection and relief of the Japanese, he lived his own meaningless life.
Until he agreed to the Japanese request that he go to that Manchukuo to sprint you back to be his emperor, he understood that this could also be a hoax, but he was blinded by the dream of the former emperor, and he could not give up. In this way, he became the emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the puppet of the Japanese.
Puppet Emperor
Until many years later, when he met in the detention center, he still wrote that he was forced by the Japanese, and at that time, he may not have realized his real mistake.
In his thirties, he couldn't even button his shirt or his shoelaces. He was well-bred and dressed by his roommates in prison. In these years of life, he has lost a lot of ordinary people's skills. With the transformation of the prison, he slowly yearns to be an ordinary person, an ordinary person who can live, and does not have to be dominated by others. He wanted to empower himself to grasp his old age.
Puyi after his release from prison
Puyi was released from prison, he was successfully transformed, he also learned some skills in prison, after being released from prison, he can become an ordinary person, can be an ordinary employee in a flower farm.
This is the transformation of him by new China.
Puyi visited the Forbidden City again
In 1988, the film won nine awards at the 60th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Artist, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Sound Effects, and Best Original Music.
I think the success of the film lies in his objectivity, as a foreigner filming the ups and downs of the life of the last emperor of China's feudal society, his portrayal and depiction of the characters is extremely objective. From a historical point of view, he did not comment too much on the character, but he did his best to depict the extraordinary life of the last emperor in modern Chinese history.
After watching this film, you will find that the quality of the characters already has an answer in your heart. Many times, a person is not wrong, the fault is in his time, a person's strength is small after all, he is difficult to resist the power of the entire era, under the wheel of history, we can only be wrapped up in the continuous forward, but the reason why man is great is because he can change, can make choices in the tide of history.
Puyi made a good choice, although at that time he was in his old age, it was not important to him, what mattered was that in his life, his life and destiny could finally be mastered by himself for a time.
In such a fast-paced era, in such a hard-working era, we must learn to change, learn to be ourselves, and use our own efforts and wisdom to dominate our own destiny!