Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69179 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-10-18
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 156 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Special Features
2.35 Wide Screen
DVD 9
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital Stereo English
Dolby Digital Stereo
Trailers
Interactive Menus
Scene Selection

Synopsis
The story of Pu Yi, who ascended to the Imperial Throne in China at the age of three and became the country’s last Emperor. Although it is 160 minutes long and shot with breathtaking scope and sumptuousness, Bernardo Bertolucci's film is a story about claustrophobia. Pu Yi is a prisoner in the palace he rules over. Outside, real power changes hands with each coup d'etat. Pu Yi grows to manhood, is tutored by a Westerner (Peter O'Toole), and marries a gorgeous princess (Joan Chen). However, the adult Pu Yi (John Lone) is destined for a communist re-education camp when the war is over. From start to finish, Pu Yi is a passive antihero who can never come to grips with the idea that the absolute power conferred on him as a child was only a mirage. The mistakes Pu Yi made trying to realise that power--especially collaborating with the Japanese during the war--provide Bertolucci with the chance to explore his familiar theme of collaboration and its moral consequences (as he did in THE CONFORMIST and 1900). In the end, Pu Yi seems to have reached a kind of peace, and the terrible waste of a special man's life disappears into a drab, grey-clad Beijing.

Customer Reviews

Poor transfer - a travesty for such a great film
I get the impression this DVD is an early example. The transfer is quite shockingly poor - especially when you compare it to more recent 2.35:1 films like Gladiator. There is a lot of edge enhancement that makes the picture seem unnatural. The compression artifacts often not seen on modern DVD transfers are often in evidence too. Yet, despite all of this the qualities of the film is well worth your money. Winner of 9 oscars tells you of its worth - but the full widescreen experience is often breathtaking and the story although often very slow (deliberate) is facinating. The DVD has two trailers (both interesting) and there are some very attractive menus (complete with the excellent soundtrack by Sakamoto and clips from the film). On a passing note, you may want to get the Region 1 version instead as it is the Directors cut and has an extra hour of footage. One of the best films ever made - but not one of the best DVDs ever.

A piece of epic cinema
The end of this film summarises my feelings so well. One of the perfect endings of cinema. It encapsulates the tragedy of the story, the artistry of the cinematography and finally the cinematic skill of Bertolucci better than anything I can write here.

All I can comment further on is obviously, the end scene. After Bertolucci brilliantly carves the character of the Last Emperor and shows both his weaknesses and human characteristics; we see a lonely and forlorn man return to his palace - that is no longer his home, but a tourist centre. Few words, no melancholic music - the images and the actions tell their own heartbreaking story. It has me in tears everytime. He has essentially a good person who had fallen victim to the metamorphsis of China's political landscape - he died with no children, no wife and no legacy.

A piece of film that is not only profound, but also a great, rather underappreciated and undervalued part of world history. Say what you can about Communist doctoring of this film - in essence the film is accurate, and no one can ever deny the sadness of Pu Yi's fate. Buy it, watch it, love it - I did.

Breathtaking
Film: 5 stars, DVD: 0 stars. It is breathtaking how such a great epic can be so thoroughly mistreated on a DVD. Every known transfer problem is evident in gigantic proportions. Same for R1. The magnificent cinematography and award winning set design is utterly ruined and rendered worthless. I hope that this will be re-released (or first released in R4) with a better transfer that will do justice to this film and everyone that worked on it.