THE CURBSIDE CRITERION: THE LAST EMPEROR

(We here at Hammer to Nail are all about true independent cinema. But we also have to tip our hat to the great films of yesteryear that continue to inspire filmmakers and cinephiles alike. This week Brad Cook dives into the new Blu-Ray release of Bernardo Bertolucci’s sprawling The Last Emperor.)

I’ve been an armchair historian for most of my life, continually fascinated by the stories held by our past, so I jumped at the chance to revisit Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic The Last Emperor. Criterion has reissued the movie in a new 4K Ultra HD edition.

The film opens in 1950 as Puyi, the titular last emperor, finds himself in custody as a war criminal in the recently created People’s Republic of China. The story then cuts to 1908, as a toddler-aged Puyi arrives in the Forbidden City to be coronated Emperor of China.

A freaking toddler becomes Emperor? I know, right? Say what you will about the way we elect Presidents in the United States, but at least we don’t follow some bizarre rules of succession that put a kid who’s barely potty trained in charge of everything.

The Last Emperor switches between Puyi brought low in the 1950s and his childhood, adolescence and eventual adulthood in the Forbidden City. In his teens, a man named Reginald Johnston (Peter O’Toole, in a role that should have gotten him an Oscar nomination) arrives to give him a Western-style education. He later weds Wanrong in an arranged marriage.

As the elder Puyi endures the Communist re-education program, the younger one decides to make some changes in the Forbidden City, including expelling the palace eunuchs, who have been looting the imperial treasures. When political change arrives in Beijing, however, he finds himself ousted from the Forbidden City.

Unfortunately, he makes the ultimately disastrous decision to re-establish himself as Emperor in Tientsin, where he will have to collaborate with the duplicitous Japanese government. In the other half of the narrative, an elderly Puyi lives a simple existence in 1967, watching as one of those who abused him during the 1950s has now had the tables turned on him in the wake of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

Yes, there are some historical inaccuracies in the film, including the fact that Emperor Puyi was even more abusive than he’s shown in the film. I assume his more sadistic tendencies were toned down so the viewer would empathize with his situation more. After all, how many kids given the power of being Emperor would decide to have one of their servants drink ink? That’s kinda the way most kids can be.

The Last Emperor looks stunning in 4K, courtesy of Criterion. Some folks online are nitpicking this transfer compared to one released in Europe, but, honestly, a lot of that is navel gazing to me. If you have a standard 4K setup, like most people do, you’ll be very happy with the way the film looks, particularly the way the red and gold colors pop off the screen.

The three-and-a-half-hour Extended Television Cut is also included here, but only on a high-def Blu-ray disc. I was happy with the way it looked too, but there’s also some online clamor for a restored 4K copy of that version too. A someone who appreciates owning great movies on physical media, I’d be happy to get a 4K Ultra HD disc of the extended version too, but it’s not a huge deal to me.

All of the bonus features were ported over from the previous Blu-ray issued by Criterion, but what’s here is very comprehensive, so I can see why there wasn’t a major need to create any new extras. The sole bonus feature found on both discs is a commentary track with Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Mark Peploe, and composer-actor Ryuichi Sakamato. It’s one of those great tracks that covers everything you want to know about the movie.

Moving on, we have The Italian Traveler, Bernardo Bertolucci, a 54-minute look at the way various geographies influenced the director’s work, with a heavy emphasis on The Last Emperor. In the same vein, the eight-minute Postcards From China documents Bertolucci’s 1985 research trip to China.

When it comes to good old-fashioned making-of features, we have two here: Bernardo Bertolucci’s Chinese Adventure (51 minutes) and Making The Last Emperor (46 minutes). The former was shot on the set of the movie in 1986 while the latter was created later, but both offer an exhaustive look at the production.

But if that wasn’t enough to whet your appetite, the 67-minute The Southbank Show spends much of its time  in Beijing, talking about the production of the film. This is an episode of a British TV series.

The history of the real Puyi is covered in Beyond the Forbidden City (46 minutes), while musician David Byrne of The Talking Heads gets a 26-minute examination of his contributions to the film.

Finally, we have an episode of another British TV show, The Late Show: Face to Face, that features host Jeremy Isaacs interviewing Bertolucci about his Best Director win at the Oscars in 1988. (Side note: It’s wild that the movie won so many Academy Awards and yet wasn’t even nominated in any of the four acting categories.)

The trailer rounds out the platter, and the included booklet is the same one Criterion has issued before, with essays by film critic David Thomson and script supervisor Fabien S. Gerard, a look back at the film by Bertolucci, and interviews with production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and actor Ying Ruocheng.

– Brad Cook (@BradCWriter)