The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor was released in 1987 and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Rather than simply retelling the plot, the film is worth revisiting for the characters, conflicts and ideas that give its story its identity.

Family, Exploitation and Parental protection emerge through what the characters face and the choices they make, giving the story more to explore beyond its immediate plot.

Puyi, Wanrong and Reginald Johnston do not begin the film seeing one another clearly, and watching those first impressions break down is a big part of why The Last Emperor still works.

In the recently established People's Republic of China, Puyi arrives as a political prisoner and war criminal at the Fushun Prison. That detail matters because it shapes the way the characters initially see one another.

Soon after his arrival, Puyi attempts suicide, but is quickly rescued and told he must stand trial. From there, the film can concentrate less on explaining the setup and more on what happens between the people inside it.

John Lone plays Puyi. After his coronation, Puyi, frightened by his new surroundings, repeatedly expresses his wish to go home, but is denied.

Elsewhere, by 1950, the 44-year-old Puyi, former Emperor of China, has been in custody for five years since his capture by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

Joan Chen plays Wanrong. Johnston, wary of the courtiers' expensive lifestyle, convinces Puyi that the best way of achieving this is through marriage; Puyi subsequently marries Wanrong, with Wenxiu as a secondary consort.

During this time, Wenxiu divorces him, but Wanrong remains and eventually succumbs to opium addiction.

Wanrong gives birth to an illegitimate child, but the baby is murdered at birth by the Japanese and proclaimed stillborn.

The Last Emperor has more on its mind than the basic setup suggests. family sits close to the centre of the film, but it is explored through the characters rather than treated like a lesson.

exploitation matters just as much. The film keeps challenging the assumptions its characters make about one another, which is where much of its emotional weight comes from.

There is also plenty here about parents protecting their children and the safety of home. Those ideas overlap rather than sitting in separate boxes, which helps the movie feel like a story about people rather than a checklist of themes.

The Last Emperor could hardly be separated from the decade that produced it. Released in 1987, it carries the attitudes, style and filmmaking rhythms of the 1980s without needing to announce them.

It also sits comfortably within the era's drama, biographical, historical and epic filmmaking, even if the movie itself is more interesting than any single genre label suggests.

That is part of why it still appears in conversations about 1980s movies and 1980s drama movies. The film has become tied not only to its own story but to the wider memory of what 1980s movies felt like.

Watching The Last Emperor now means seeing both what has lasted and what unmistakably belongs to 1987.

What still works best is the human material. Ideas around family, exploitation and parents protecting their children have not stopped being relevant simply because the clothes, language and cultural references belong to another era.

Some moments inevitably land differently for a modern audience. Revisiting an older film properly means enjoying what still works without pretending every choice has aged equally well.

A large part of that staying power comes from the characters. Puyi, Wanrong and Reginald Johnston are still useful shorthand for the personalities and pressures the film explores.

The Last Emperor has lasted because people continue to recognise something in it. Nostalgia helps, but nostalgia alone does not keep a movie in the conversation for decades.