SOURCE: Blake, Richard A. “China Doll.” America 158, no. 1 (9 January 1988): 17.

In the following positive review, Blake asserts that The Last Emperor exhibits a return to the brilliance of Bertolucci's early career.

Many people, especially as they pass through the peak of their middle years, grow melancholy with their lack of achievement. Most of these will simply regret that life has never called them to greatness, or having called them, then conspired against them. Most lives are shot through with threads of regret bordering on tragedy. The fortunate among such people learn to scale down expectations and relish the smaller, more human pleasures life offers. If they cannot rule an empire, then they can plant a garden. Some few others look back on opportunities for greatness once given but unrecognized and now passed, and label themselves simply failures. Finally, there are people who collaborate with history in their own downfall...