The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor outlines roughly 60 years of China's political history in about 3 hours, through the experiences of emperor Pu Yi. It begins with a very charming exposition of Emperor Pu Yi's idyllic childhood in the Forbidden City of China. There is no better way to establish a character as the protagonist of a film than to introduce him to an audience with such adorable innocence. However, Pu Yi grows from an adorable toddler into an interestingly troubled and questioning teen, and then into a reclusive, reticent and boring shadow of a personality for the remaining 2 hours of the film. For someone who is not already cultured in Chinese history, the film may also grow from charming to confusing to boring as easy-to-follow history of a failing dynasty becomes a confusing mess of historical implications that skirt the edges of actual explanations.

This confusing aspect of the film, however, is partly because of one of the more successful parts of the film, which is its focus solely on Pu Yi and his family. The film does not follow story lines of Japanese characters or show other perspectives, so while the historical facts surrounding other entities become cloudy in the film, what is left is a pleasing and in-depth story of a man and his family.

Apart from the story, The last Emperor is very aesthetically pleasing. The forbidden city re-creation is wonderful and the beautifal mansions and fancy party scenes in the later section of the film interestingly contrasts the turmoil of the film's storyline.