Review – The Last Emperor

If you don’t have a big screen to watch this one on, you can pretty much forget it. It’s mildly interesting as a history of China during the turbulent first half of the 20th century. The script’s not too bad, at least giving some good Asian actors the chance to play something besides waiters, martial artists and gang members. It gets a little sentimental in spots (especially toward the end), but for the most part it works well as a portrait of the decline and fall of the Chinese monarchy. But as with many films of this length and budget, the real attractions here are the costume pageantry and the sweeping vistas of the cinematography. It functions just fine as a movie, but it works much better as a pretty picture. Mildly amusing