Bernardo Bertolucci certainly has achieved something special with this. His other film that I dearly love is Little Buddah. There's a raw and authentic quality to his films.
IMDB says runtime is 2h45min. However, I watched a version which is 3h38min. And I was not bored for one second.
It's a wonderful film, extremely well made and beautifully shot.
It's quite slow and glamorous, which is great when you're in the mood, but I can see why some people don't find it to be their cup of tea.
It didn't have to be that slow, not at all, but the director did love to linger over luciously colorful visuals, didn't he? If I ruled the universe I'd have told him to shorten the shots of billowing silks, and get on with the personal drama, and there was plenty of that! I read a bit about Emperor/Comrade Pu Yi after seeing the film, and yeah, drama there was.
Saw this last night on HBOMAX. The version on HBOMAX is 2:42. Where did you watch this 3:38 version? I think you probably liked it a little more than I did but it's quite good.
I think the pacing of the film could have been touched up a little but for the most part, it's well made and a rather interesting story.
However, I can't seem to stop watching bio-pics like this. lol. I might be somewhat bias. I think I find them to be a little more interesting than scripts that are completely made up. With films like this you at least get the illusion that it could have played out this way.
At any rate, I really liked Joan Chen's performance in this. She was very good but they all did a solid job. It seems like the Emperor wanted to leave the forbidden city more than anything when he was young but after the red take-over, I'm sure he was wishing to go back. lol...
I'll give it a 7.9 out of 10. It's definitely worth a look if you have any interest at all in Chinese history or if you just like good story-telling.
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