Bertolucci makes pretty pictorial music, but two hours and forty-six minutes is a long time for a movie to dance. Maybe it wouldn't be if his sense of rhythm hadn't become erratic.

Yet there’s also a great sadness in the film, as it tracks Puyi, the emperor of the title (played by four actors at different ages), through a state of permanent lifelong imprisonment, from gilded cage to Red Army capture.

When this film really sings, it's as if Bertolucci had tapped the wellspring of cinema and, ecstatic, discovered the eroticism at its essence.

As a resplendently gorgeous historical pageant of China in the 20th century, The Last Emperor is, visually at least, the most beautiful movie in years. But as an involving human drama about Pu Yi... it doggedly refuses to come to much dramatic life.