The Last Emperor (1987)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci.
Starring: John Lone (Pu Yi, Adult), Joan Chen (Wan Jung), Peter O'Toole (Reginald Johnston, R.J.), Ruocheng Ying (The Governor), Victor Wong (Chen Pao Shen), Dennis Dun (Big Li), Ryuichi Sakamoto (Amakasu), Maggie Han (Eastern Jewel), Ric Young (Interrogator), Vivian Wu (Wen Hsiu), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Chang), Jade Go (Ar Mo), Fumihiko Ikeda (Yoshioka), Richard Vuu (Pu Yi, 3 Years), Tsou Tijger (Pu Yi, 8 Years).
Country: Italian-British-Chinese film
Oscar: Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Costume Design, Original Score
Great movie covering a great deal of Chinese (and Japanese) history.
A really great movie with lots of beautiful views of pomp and ceremony. The movie follows closely the real life story of China's last emperor, Puyi. One has to feel sorry for the young emperor who seems to be more prisoner than Emperor. And his life basically stays that way for the rest of his existence. He was emperor in a time that had passed emperors by. He was emperor, but emperor with a regent, then he was emperor but with no kingdom to rule, then he was emperor, but a fake emperor (a puppet to the Japanese), then he was an emperor in a communist re-education camp. And even after he left the camp, the Cultural Revolution made his last years uneasy ones. Thank goodness, you are not a last emperor as was Puyi. Dr. Patrick L. Cooney.
Historical Background:
1820-1850 -- rule of Puyi's great-grandfather, the Daoguang Emperor.
1840-1891 -- Puyi's paternal grandfather was the 1st Prince Chun, and son of the Daoguang Emperor.
1850-1861 -- rule of the great grandfather's fourth son, Xianfeng Emperor.
1861-1875 -- rule of Xianfeng's only son, who became the Tongzhi Emperor. He died without a son.
1861-1908 -- the Empress Dowager Cixi (popularly known in China as the Western Empress Dowager) the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
1875-1908 -- rule of Guangxu Emperor, son of the 1st Prince Chun and his wife, who was the younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi. Guangxu died without an heir.
1906 -- Puyi born.
1908 -- death of the Empress Dowager. She chose Puyi to be her heir on her deathbed.
1908-1912 -- Puyi was the last ruling emperor of China, the tenth emperor of the Qing Dynasty. He succeeded Guangxu. Puyi was the eldest son of the 2nd Price Chun (1883–1951), who in turn was the son of the 1st Prince Chun and his second concubine, the Lady Lingiya (1866–1925).
Puyi was very young.
1908-1911 -- Puyi's father served as regent.
1911 -- Empress Dowager Longyu became regent for Puyi in the face of the Xinhai Revolution.
1911 -- The Xinhai Revolution, Hsinhai Revolution, the 1911 Revolution or the Chinese Revolution, was a republican revolution that overthrew China's Qing Dynasty (occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty).
1911-1949 -- the Republic of China.
1912 -- Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) was proclaimed provisional president of the republic. He was soon replaced by Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general. After his death the country fragmented politically.
1912-1924 -- Puyi was the last non-ruling emperor of China. He was known as Mr. Puyi.
Puyi had an English language teacher, Scotsman Reginald Johnston.
late 1920s -- the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, reunified the country under its own control.
1924 -- after the Emperor was forced to abdicate, he and his wife moved to the City of Tianjin, southeast of Bejing.
1931 -- Japan invades Manchuria.
1932 -- in Manchuria, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchuko.
1934-1935 -- Pu Yi was the Kangde Emperor of Manchuko. Over time he became a mere puppet of the Japanese.
Realizing her husband had no real political power, the Empress's addiction to opium worsened and her lack of freedom caused her mental health to deteriorate.
Puyi ordered his wife sent to the "Cold Palace," a palace for the isolation of emperors' disfavored consorts.
1937 -- Japan invades China. With 200,000 soldiers, the Japanese occupied Shanghai, Nanjing and southern Shanxi.
1939-1945 -- World War II.
1945 -- Puyi was captured by the Soviet Army.
1946 -- Puyi testified at the Tokyo war crimes trial, where he condemned the Japanese using him as a puppet ruler.
1946 -- the last Chinese Empress, Puyi's wife, died alone in the Prison of Yanji in Jilin Province after being captured by the Red Army.
1947 -- ongoing civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China
1949 -- Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong come to power.
1949 - present -- the People's Republic of China.
1949 -- Puyi first learned of the death of his wife in prison.
By early 1950 -- the Communists had defeated the Kuomintang.
1950 -- Stalin repatriated the former emperor to China. There he spent ten years in a reeducation camp in Fushun, Liaoning provine.
c 1960 -- after being declared reformed, Puyi supported the Communists and worked at the Beijing Botanical Gardens
1964-1967 -- Pu Yi was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference under the name Aixinjueluo Puyi.
1966-1976 -- the Cultural Revolution; launched by Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong to make sure Maoism would be China's dominant ideology to eliminate political opposition.
1967 -- Puyi died of cancer during the Cultural Revolution.
1969 -- Mao declared the end of the Cultural Revolution, but it was not over.
1976 (September 9) -- death of Mao.
1976 -- arrest of the Gang of Four. These officials were blamed for the extreme events of the Cultural Revolution; they were arrested and removed from their positions. The group included Mao's widow Jiang Qing, three of her close associates, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen, along with Kang Sheng and Xie Fuzhi (both already dead).
1978 (early) -- Deng Xiaoping became the real power of the Party. Reforms have relaxed some of the extreme controls on Chinese society.
1981 -- the four deposed Cultural Revolution leaders were tried and sent to prison. They were later released.
1989 -- a popular demonstration for more freedom occurred in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and was eventually violently put down.
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