Although it is 160 minutes long and shot with breathtaking scope and sumptuousness, Bertolucci's film is a story about claustrophobia. Pu Yi, the Manchurian emperor of China who ascended the throne in 1908 at the age of three, 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 reeducation 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 realize 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.
cast
Joan Chen as Empress Wan Jung/Elizabeth John Lone as Emperor (Henry) Pu Yi Peter O'Toole as Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston
Pu Yi, at 15: Where are your ancestors buried?
Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston: In Scotland, your majesty.
Pu Yi, at 15: But then, where's your skirt? In your country, men wear short skirts, do they not?
Reginald Fleming 'R.J.' Johnston: No, your majesty, Scotmen do not wear skirts. They wear kilts.
