Review of The Last Emperor

A well done and fascinating, but long and poorly explained biopic - compressing sixty years of history and politics into two and a half hours will be at least a bit overwhelming for a viewer who is not familiar with the topic to understand. However, in terms of art direction, costumes and acting the film is definitely fine. Lone is entirely convincing at the title person from young adulthood to old age, and O'Toole is good as his tutor. But the overarching problem with the film is that all this history is presented without much explanation… making the film a far from satisfying watch, even if one with many cinematic virtues.