The film’s most persistent theme is psychological and physical entrapment. As a child, Puyi is told, “In this place, you are the most high… but it is also your cage.” He is surrounded by eunuchs, tutors, and servants, yet utterly isolated from the outside world. His attempts to escape—running to the great gates of the Forbidden City—are futile. Later, as a puppet emperor, he is trapped by ambition and cowardice. Finally, in prison, he learns to see his former “glory” as a crime.
Upon release, The Last Emperor was a critical and commercial triumph. It won all nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, Best Director (Bertolucci), and Best Adapted Screenplay. It remains the last film to achieve such a clean sweep. However, the film has not been without controversy. Some historians have criticized it for historical inaccuracies (e.g., compressing timelines, omitting certain brutalities of Puyi’s collaboration). Others have noted a romanticized, almost Orientalist gaze in its depiction of the Forbidden City’s decadence.
The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro is a masterclass in symbolic color. The film’s three acts are visually demarcated: the amber and gold of imperial childhood, the oppressive reds and shadows of the Japanese occupation, and the desaturated, olive-grey tones of the communist prison camp. The famous final scene—the aged Puyi buying a ticket to enter his former home and secretly revealing a cricket to a child—collapses time and memory into a single, poetic gesture.
The film’s most persistent theme is psychological and physical entrapment. As a child, Puyi is told, “In this place, you are the most high… but it is also your cage.” He is surrounded by eunuchs, tutors, and servants, yet utterly isolated from the outside world. His attempts to escape—running to the great gates of the Forbidden City—are futile. Later, as a puppet emperor, he is trapped by ambition and cowardice. Finally, in prison, he learns to see his former “glory” as a crime.
Upon release, The Last Emperor was a critical and commercial triumph. It won all nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, Best Director (Bertolucci), and Best Adapted Screenplay. It remains the last film to achieve such a clean sweep. However, the film has not been without controversy. Some historians have criticized it for historical inaccuracies (e.g., compressing timelines, omitting certain brutalities of Puyi’s collaboration). Others have noted a romanticized, almost Orientalist gaze in its depiction of the Forbidden City’s decadence.
The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro is a masterclass in symbolic color. The film’s three acts are visually demarcated: the amber and gold of imperial childhood, the oppressive reds and shadows of the Japanese occupation, and the desaturated, olive-grey tones of the communist prison camp. The famous final scene—the aged Puyi buying a ticket to enter his former home and secretly revealing a cricket to a child—collapses time and memory into a single, poetic gesture.
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