Review #6 THE LAST EMPEROR (1987, Bernardo Bertolucci)

 

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Biopic about the life of Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the 11th and final Emperor of China.

Starring  John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun

Written by  Mark Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci

Produced by  Jeremy Thomas   

Duration  163 minutes   

Could THE LAST EMPEROR be the ultimate Oscar ‘prestige’ film? It certainly ticks all the boxes:

– Bum-numbing runtime.

– Foreign setting (where everyone speaks English with an accent, so there’s no need for subtitles).

– Foreign director (from a different foreign country), who is also a ‘name’.

– True-life story.

– Sweeping cinematography.

– Lots of impressive costumes and sets.

– Bombastic score.

– ‘Important’, in some way.

And, holy shit: the thing won nine Academy Awards in 1987. Everything it was up for! And it did so THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING style, with nothing troubling the acting categories (see also TITANIC, although that did get Actress/Supporting Actress nominations).

What else was in the running for the big prize that year? You had BROADCAST NEWS, FATAL ATTRACTION, MOONSTRUCK, and HOPE AND GLORY. No clear winner among those, with that last one probably having the best chance since it was another historical drama.

So what swung the vote for LAST EMPEROR? Most likely it was the final point on my above tick list.

Being known as an important film rings alarm bells, as far as I’m concerned. That can be worse than style over substance: worthiness over substance. But then, maybe worthiness is substance? If so, only politically, not artistically. And from where did this worthiness actually originate? Was it the filmmakers’ intention, or was it manufactured later on by the marketing team? You know what I mean: "This is the movie we need right now", "A significant film for our times" – that sort of bollocks. Do directors hope to make a film that resonates specifically at the particular time of its release? Does a screenwriter sit down and think, OK, what's the most important thing I could possibly write my story about?

As a film, LAST EMPEROR seems to have been completely forgotten. It’s never mentioned in best-of lists, or cited as a worthy or unworthy Oscar winner. Its only discernible cultural impact was getting The Simpsons’ parody treatment, in the Stonecutters episode. And is there anyone who has ever sat at home and said, "Ooh, you know what, come on, let’s fire up THE LAST EMPEROR!" " … But I thought we were going clubbing?" "I said give me 10 CCs of LAST EMPEROR, stat!"

Also getting those alarm bells ringing for me was the critical consensus on LAST EMPEROR: phrases banded about like ‘visually breathtaking’, ‘astonishing use of locations’ and ‘stunning opulence’. Was I about to spend nearly three hours staring at a travelogue, as nice-looking but uninvolving as slowly leafing through a pile of holiday brochures?

Personally, I don’t care about nice scenery. I don’t care about historical accuracy. I don’t care if Bertolucci was the first director allowed to film in China's Forbidden City. Alright, that's harsh: I care a little bit, in passing, but not enough to sustain me through 163 minutes. I need more. I need story, characters, incident. I need it to be worth the time spent with this emperor – as a human being, not as a symbol or icon, no matter now pretty his clothes and surroundings may be.

So, did THE LAST EMPEROR give me what I need? Not really, I’m afraid. I’d call it the most boring Best Picture winner ever, but then THE ENGLISH PATIENT came along a decade later to tick those boxes all over again.

After opening on our emperor chap towards the end of his life in 1950, in what had by then become the People's Republic of China (and to which point the narrative will switch back intermittently), we start at the beginning, when he is coronated as a mere toddler. He’s petulant and sulky and rude to his servants, including Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (LICENCE TO KILL, RISING SUN, Shang Tsung in 1995's MORTAL KOMBAT).

This earliest period is mercifully brief, and we soon skip ahead to the teenaged emperor; although he’s still pretty bratty, revelling in the fact he can ‘do anything I want’. You could call this the coming of age segment, except that he doesn’t learn anything and is too irritating and arrogant for us to invest in his journey. When he learns that China outside the Forbidden Kingdom now has a president and so he ain’t the emperor of nowt no more, we think, Good, maybe now you'll learn some humility, ya spoilt little twerp.

From then on, we jump through the rest of his life, as he becomes gradually less insufferable, but no more interesting. He’s tutored by Peter O’Toole, who I think was sober during his scenes, but there’s no guarantee that his drinking buddies Ollie Reed and Richard Harris weren’t visiting the set and getting him plastered between takes. There are some tense moments when an optician tells our man he needs glasses, but his entourage insists that ‘the emperor does not wear spectacles!’ He marries Joan Chen and has a second wife as well, kind of. He cuts off his ceremonial ponytail, checks out of the Forbidden City and becomes a self-proclaimed ‘playboy’ in the outside world. Sometimes there’s a voiceover, sometimes there isn’t. Eunuchs are mentioned frequently. People loll around zonked out on opium. I try to stay awake.

Probably the highlight for me came during the opening credits, when I learned that there were in fact three collaborations in the ’80s between Dennis Dun and Victor Wong, beyond the John Carpenter classics BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and PRINCE OF DARKNESS. They’re even credited together! But sadly, they don’t share any scenes, let alone face down ancient sorcerers or cylinders hidden under monasteries that contain the liquid embodiment of Satan.

I don’t think I ever got over that disappointment, and LAST EMPEROR never provided anything that adequately compensated. At least I managed to get through this whole review without once using the word ‘epic’ ... shit.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As far as China was concerned, absolutely. See other individual countries for current status of emperor-ness.

What would a movie called THE FIRST EMPEROR be about?  Qin Shi Huang was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. His era of 259 BC was quite a while ago, so details for a biopic are likely to be pretty sketchy.

Previously:  PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

Next time:  INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

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