The historical film "The Last Empress", released in 1987, was produced by Changchun Film Studio, written by Zhang Xiaotian, and directed by Chen Jialin and Sun Qingguo. tells the tragic life of Guo Bulo Wanrong, the last empress of the Qing Dynasty, although she was an empress, she was actually a slave and suffered from mental pain.
In the current view, this film can be described as an "all-star" cast, Pan Hong as Empress Wanrong, Jiang Wen as Emperor Puyi, and Liu Wei as the bodyguard Li Yueting. At that time, Pan Hong was already a well-known actress, successfully portraying many tragic heroines, and Jiang Wen was still a 22-year-old film and television newcomer, and this "The Last Queen" was his screen debut.
"The Last Queen" takes Wanrong as the protagonist and unfolds her tragic life step by step. The film starts with graceful ascension to the queen's throne, and she is brilliant and stunningly beautiful under the costume. Imperial Princess Wen Xiu fled because she could not bear the abuse of the emperor and the arbitrariness of the empress, which made Puyi resentful of Wanrong. Although Wanrong tried her best to exude charm to Puyi, it was still irreparable. Under Pu Yi's abuse and snub, Wanrong fornicated with the guard Li Yueting and gave birth to a son, Pu Yi secretly killed Li Yueting after learning about it, and at the same time let people abuse and kill Wanrong's children, and beat Wanrong into the cold palace. After experiencing such twists and turns, Wanrong became insane, lost her past demeanor, and became unkempt, and only the kind and naïve concubine Tan Yuling would secretly visit her. Until Tan Yuling died of illness, Puyi held a grand funeral for her, the film ended, the crazy grace, Tan Yuling's funeral ceremony as a ceremonial guard to welcome himself to the throne, this bleakness contrasts strongly with the brilliance of the beginning, which is embarrassing.
The grace in the film is depressed and depressing, and Pan Hong interprets this character very layered. In the early stage, it was bright and moving, Gu Pansheng, in the middle stage, there was unwillingness and attempted to resist, and in the later stage, it lost its brilliance and was empty and crazy, but even when she was crazy, the inherent demeanor of Wanrong as an empress would still appear from time to time. Pan Hong played a distressing empress, she was lonely and empty, so sad that she would not feel pain when she put out the candle with her hand, and she was bound by feudal rites and religion, attached to Puyi, and trapped in Puyi, just like the title of the film "The Last Empress", both glamorous and desolate.
In this film, Jiang Wen, who first appeared on the screen, also showed amazing acting skills. In the film, the last emperor has the arrogance of being an aristocrat, the cowardice of becoming a Japanese puppet, the gentle tenderness of the favored concubine, the coldness of the gentle gloomy, and the rigidity of the restoration... In the suffocating and depressed life, Puyi became more and more distorted, and Jiang Wen interpreted this complex and contradictory character to the fullest, fully demonstrating his ability and talent in performance.
This film and its main creators have won many domestic and foreign awards, including the Special Jury Prize of the 4th Rio de Janeiro International Film and Television Festival in Brazil, the Best Actress Award at the 18th Taormina International Film Festival in Italy (Pan Hong), and the Best Actress Award at the 5th Damascus International Film Festival (Pan Hong), etc., leaving a strong mark in the history of the development of Changying.
Produced by Jilin Daily
Curator: Jiang Zhongxiao
Executive editor-in-chief: Yu Yue
Author: Jilin Daily all-media reporter Pei Yuhong
Editor: Yu Yue