The last emperor

Bernardo Bertoluccis The Last Emperor was the first and most ambitious films ever made by Western Film Makers about modern China. The film is also the intimate story of an extraordinary man and his journey of self-discovery
Pu Yi, the last emperor came to the imperial throne in 1908 at the age of three. The son of Heaven , Lord of the Thousand Years was forced to abdicate at the age of 6 was thrown out of the forbidden city in 1924 with his two wives and drawn into the life of a western style playboy. In 1931 he succumbed to the seductive Japanese invitation and mount the throne again and became a puppet emperor in the japanese controlled state of Manchukuo . Captured by the Russians in 1945, he was returned to China in 1950 expecting to be executed by the communists Instead he spent ten years in gaol in the hands of an enlightened rison governor and emerged to changed man. He returned to Peking at the start of the Cultural Revolution and became a gardener, more free than he had ever before He died in 1967