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''The Last Emperor'' is a 1987 biographical film about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures.〔''Variety'' film review; October 7, 1987.〕 Puyi's life is depicted from his ascent to the throne as a small boy to his imprisonment and political rehabilitation by the Communist Party of China. The film stars John Lone as Puyi, with Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Maggie Han, Ric Young, Vivian Wu, and Chen Kaige. It was the first occidental feature film for which the producers were authorized by the People's Republic of China to film in the Forbidden City in Beijing.〔(Love And Respect, Hollywood-Style ), an April 1988 article by Richard Corliss in ''Time''〕 It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. == Plot == The film opens in 1950, five years after the capture of Puyi by the Red Army when the Soviet Union entered the Pacific War in 1945 and his having been kept in their custody. In the recently established People's Republic of China Puyi arrives as a political prisoner and war criminal at the Fushun Prison. Soon after his arrival, Puyi attempts suicide, which only renders him unconscious. In the first of a series of flashbacks between 1950 and various prior times, Puyi relives his being summoned to the Forbidden City in 1908, aged two, by the dying Empress Dowager Cixi (Lisa Lu). With her last words, at an audience with Puyi and his father, Cixi announces that Puyi will be the new emperor. After his coronation, Puyi, frightened by his new surroundings, repeatedly expresses his wish to go home, which is denied him. Despite having scores of eunuchs to wait on him, his only real friend is his wet nurse, who accompanied him and his father to the palace on the Empress Dowager's summons. The next section of the film continues the series of chronological flashbacks showing Puyi's early life: from his imperial upbringing in the Forbidden City with his younger brother, Pujie, during the Chinese Republic, his tutelage under the kindly Scotsman, Reginald Johnston (Peter O'Toole) and his marriage to Wanrong (Joan Chen) to his subsequent exile, his Japanese-supported puppet reign of Manchukuo, and then his capture by the Soviet Army—all of which are intermixed with flash-forwards portraying his prison life in the 50s. Under the “Communist re-education programme" for political prisoners, Puyi is coerced by his interrogators to formally renounce his forced collaboration with the Imperial Japanese invaders for war crimes during their occupation of China during the war. Finally, after a heated discussion with the camp commandant and upon watching a film detailing the wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese, Puyi recants his previous stance and is considered rehabilitated by the government; he is subsequently set free in 1959. The next section of the film shows a flash-forward to 1967 during the rise of the Mao cult and the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. By now, Puyi has become a simple gardener who lives a peasant proletarian existence. On his way home from work, he happens upon a Red Guard parade, complete with children playing pentatonic music on accordions ''en masse'' and dancers who dance the rejection of landlordism by the Communists. His prison camp commander, his only friend during his incarceration, is forced to wear a dunce cap and a sandwich board bearing punitive slogans, and is one of the political prisoners now punished as an anti-revolutionary in the parade. In the epilogue, Puyi later visits the Forbidden City as an ordinary tourist. There he meets an assertive little boy wearing the red scarf of the Pioneer Movement. The young Communist orders Puyi to step away from the throne. However, Puyi proves to the boy that he was indeed the Son of Heaven, proceeding to approach the throne. Behind it, Puyi finds a 60-year-old pet cricket that he was given by an elderly Mandarin (bureaucrat) on his coronation day and gives it to the child. Amazed by the gift, the boy turns to talk to Puyi, but the emperor has disappeared. The film ends with a flash-forward to 1987 where a tour guide is leading a group through the palace. Stopping in front of the throne, the guide sums up Puyi's life in a few, brief sentences, concluding that he died in 1967. The picture freeze-frames on the throne and the credits roll. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Last Emperor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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