SOURCE: Wilson, David. “Peter Pan in the Forbidden City.” Sight and Sound 57, no. 2 (spring 1988): 134–35.

In the following review, Wilson argues that although segments of Bertolucci's The Last Emperor are “magnificent,” they do not create a unified whole.

‘Is it true I can do anything I like?’ The child's remark is half innocent, half aware of the corruptions of power—and perhaps the key to Bertolucci's interpretation of the life of the last Emperor of China. Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi was, literally, His Majesty the Child. Installed on the Dragon Throne in 1908 at the age of three, festooned by stepmothers, tutors, courtiers and an army of eunuchs (1,600 of them), the child emperor was omnipotent. In his confessional autobiography written—or ghosted—during the period of his rehabilitation by the Chinese Communist Party, Pu Yi describes a meal that was laid out for him each day in the Mind Nurture Palace...