Review of The Last Emperor (1987) by Justin M — 17 Jul 2010

This is a movie that does not quite remain interesting throughout the entire running time. However, that's to be expected since it's very nearly 4 hours long. I found the first half completely engrossing, but eventually it lost me a bit.

What was most striking was how useless all of the pageantry surrounding Pu Yi was. It was fascinating to watch the amount of resources that must have gone into keeping a powerless figurehead in office, and the film really does an excellent job conveying this fact. Even when he's no longer emperor everybody does whatever Pu Yi tells them to do, so long as he never tells them to do anything meaningful. And he never does do anything meaningful unless somebody tells him to; he spends the entire movie being used by those with more drive and ambition than himself, until at the end it seems as if he could only find meaning in being used.