Bernardo Bertolucci's epic film tells the incredible story of Pu Yi who in 1908 at the age of three became ruler of nearly half of the world's population. He was the ""Son of heaven"" ""Lord of Ten Thousand Years"" and the last emperor of China. His reign was short and three years later a revolution ended three thousand years of imperial rule and a new republic was born. Allowed to remain in his palace and the enclosed walls of the Forbidden City he was unable to venture further than the city gates. Here he would stay for twelve years a prisoner protected from but also ignorant of the outside world. Eventually expelled by a republican warlord Pu Yi began an incredible journey of self discovery that would span a quarter of a century. Winner of nine Oscars The Last Emperor was one of the biggest and most ambitious productions ever undertaken. Director Bernardo Bertolucci and Producer Jeremy Thomas spent two years in negotiations before being granted the unprecedented permission to not only film in China but within the Forbidden City itself. The result was one of the most visually breathtaking and moving epics ever made.
Keanu Reeves and Bridget Fonda star in this motion picture spectacular from Academy Award-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci. In a big American city young Jesse Conrad and his family discover a story about a prince in a land of miracles. But the miracle becomes real when Tibetan monks appear searching for their leader's reincarnation - who they believe has been reborn into Jesse! Suddenly their worlds meet leading the Americans on an extraordinary adventure!
Winner of nine Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor following Pu Yi the last of the Emperor's of China from his birth in 1908 through his childhood in the fortress-like Forbidden City and his later misguided collaboration with the Japanese in World War II THE LAST EMPEROR tells the history of modern China through the eyes of the man brought up to believe that he was the country's divine ruler. One of the biggest and most ambitious films of the era filmed almost entirely on location in China in 1986 Bertolucci and his producer Jeremy Thomas were the first Western film-makers to be allowed to make a film about modern China.
Bernardo Bertolucci does the nearly impossible with this sweeping, grand epic that tells a very personal tale. The story is a dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the emperors of China. It follows his life from its elite beginnings in the Forbidden City, where he was crowned at age three and worshipped by half a billion people. He was later forced to abdicate and, unable to fend for himself in the outside world, became a dissolute and exploited shell of a man. He died in obscurity, living as a peasant in the People's Republic. We never really warm up to John Lone in the title role, but The Last Emperor focuses more on visuals than characterisation anyway. Filmed in the Forbidden City, it is spectacularly beautiful, filling the screen with saturated colours and exquisite detail. It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. --Rochelle O'Gorman
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