The Last Emperor

Watched this almost 2 or 3 weeks ago but had little time to review.

Anyways, this was a 3 hour epic of a history lesson, and I enjoyed every minute of it, since it was very immersive and told me a lot about the history the film centered upon. I’m aware that movies usually don’t represent history accurately, but this was a highly intriguing and well-produced depiction that seemed quite neutral to me, so despite having reserves about the accuracy of it all, I still very much enjoyed being exposed to this piece of history.

That said, this film is amazing. Even though it was filmed in 1987 and I watched it in 2010, the completeness of the props, sets, costumes, and /everything/ was just so well-done and flawless that I couldn’t get over the seriousness of it all while watching it. It’s definitely FAR from being a half-assed attempt at depicting this legacy, and this completeness and attention to detail is what made and will make this movie a timeless piece.

I couldn’t really find much to criticize about in this, except that it was extremely long. The length was really necessary, though, since the timeline in the film spans about 50 years, and only by making it 3 hours will it do the 50 years covered justice. I watched an hour of the film for 3 days, which I think is a good way to break it up if you don’t have 3 hours to devote at one. Splitting it up doesn’t detract much from the film because a lot of events occur that contribute to the final ending, and they’re not really presented in a continuous way. There’s a lot of jumping from more recent events to earlier events (and vice versa), which is a wonderful technique in my opinion since it makes the audience try to tie in everything themselves while keeping it interesting by switching up the order.

The acting was quite impeccable, I think, and I quite liked John Lone’s depiction of the emperor. I didn’t feel too strongly about the performances, but I was also unable to find any real weaknesses in their depictions. Everyone did their job well, and they were all convincing without being exaggerated. The general lack of deliberateness, except in Maggie Han’s performance, was, I think, essential to the film’s believability and faithfulness/effort in representing history.

Anyways, wonderful but long film that has no apparent flaws, but also didn’t really give me any strong emotional reactions. Really good starting point for getting interested in Chinese history, as well. 88/100