The Last Emperor

[Anonymous]

I, too, watched this movie when it was first released twenty-some years ago. At first I found the movie a bit awkward because all the Chinese actors were wearing Ching dynasty clothes yet speaking English. But later, I was totally immersed in the turbulent life of the last emperor.

This is a good movie to show the fall of the last Chinese dynasty and the Japanese invasion on China, but there are a few scenes that are inappropriate. I think I would show some clips to my students instead of the entire movie.

[Anonymous]

I saw this movie a few years ago, when I did not know much about China. I saw the film again, after our seminar, understanding and enjoying it more. It might not be suitable showing it to my 9-10 graders.

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed this movie so much, and since it is in English I can see how students would also enjoy it as they follow and are able to keep up with all that is going on.

[Anonymous]

The parallels between this movie and "Kundun" by Scorsese are really interesting, even if you don't take into account the specific subject matter. Purely from the perspective of bildungsroman, the linkage of personal coming of age with intense socio-political loss is very moving.

[Anonymous]

I watched this movie and was shocked to learn that the elders had to smell the feces of the emperor in order know if he was sick or not, and if he was sick, what kind of sickness it was. I will show the first part of the movie to my students and have them share with each other how they felt when the little emperor was taken from his mother in the village, while she was breast feeding him, and have the students share with each other how they feel about that part. After the sharing, I will have the students write about it. The next day, I will show another section of the movie that showed the architectural part of the imperial palace, students will use descriptive words to describe the structures of the imperial palace, after that, the students will use the Venn Diagram to explain how the castle and the imperial palace are the same and how they are different.
edited by rliao on 6/21/2012

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

The Last Emperor refers to the last emperor of the Manchurian Dynasty and was the end of all the dynasties. Pu Yi was only three when he became emperor and died in 1957. He was forced to leave the Forbidden City as the young married emperor and to move to northern China, Manchuria, which was then controlled by Japan. He spent a brief, restless period enjoying the lack of responsibility that he suddenly had. Then the Japanese wanted him to become a figurehead or puppet emperor. He was horrified after the war, when he was in prison at the hands of the new Chinese Government, the communist People's Republic, to see newsreels of the bombings of Shanghai by the Japanese and of their biological research on live humans and of their massacres of Chinese. It was very difficult for him to work with the Japanese once he understood their patronizing attitude toward him and that they did not intend to treat him or other Chinese as equals. Under the Chinese Communists, he signed statements that he willingly participated in Japanese atrocities, etc., which he really did not. Through frequent flashbacks of his life as he underwent imprisonment and was later freed, the state of China at the end of the Ching dynasty and during it are brought into focus with a lot of poignancy, sadness and involvement on the part of the viewer. I had seen this movie years ago when it first came out and all I remembered of it was the weakened and bitter physical state of the empress after having undergone medical service under the Japanese after her illigitimate son (of the chauffeur) was born and assassinated. With my heightened interest in Asia through the USC US-China Institute, twenty years from now I think I will remember much more the history of China during the last dynasty, through the Kuomintang, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and other parts of China, through the beginning of the Cultural Revolution under Mao and the heartbreaking journey through all of these events of the last emperor and empress of China. My students will benefit from selective video clips showing these events.

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