"The Last Emperor" is a classic by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, telling the story of the 60-year ups and downs of The last emperor of China, Puyi.
It was the first feature film to be shot inside the Forbidden City with permission from the Chinese government, and the first Western film about China to receive full cooperation from the Chinese government since 1949.
The film won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Sound Effects, best original music, etc., but did not receive a single performance award, not even a nomination.
Language is an important factor limiting the casting of the film, and Liang Chaowei is worried that his English is not fluent enough, and he discourages the idea of competing for the role of adult Puyi.
Leung Ka Fai "Fire Dragon"
Liang Jiahui rejected the role out of loyalty to his mentor Li Hanxiang, who had always wanted to adapt Puyi's autobiography "The First Half of My Life", but the copyright was preempted by the Italians. Li Hanxiang had to shoot "Fire Dragon: The Second Half of the Life of Ai Xin Jue Luo Puyi", and it was Liang Jiahui who played Puyi.
At that time, the long film studio was filming "The Last Empress", and the role of Puyi was 24-year-old Jiang Wen.
The final star of "The Last Emperor" is Zun Long, and it is said that he was also the first actor to audition for Puyi. The director was satisfied with his performance, but wanted to see other people again, but he did not expect to go around in a circle and still choose Zun Long.
It should be said that Zun Long played a Puyi who experienced a huge gap in life quite well, and his face full of oriental mystery and with a bit of coldness left a deep impression on the audience.
Richard Wu
Wrinkled Tiger
In the eyes of foreign media, Zun Long and Richard Wu, who played 3-year-old Puyi, and Wrinkled Tiger, who played 8-year-old Puyi, have good performances, because they are all Chinese-Americans, and language is not a problem.
Only Wu Tao, the 15-year-old Puyi's actor, was criticized. With 140 million readers, the screenrant movie network has listed "15 characters that have caused hard injuries to great movies", including The young Puyi played by Wu Tao in "The Last Emperor".
"Because 'The Last Emperor' is english as the main language, many actors have obvious accents in their dialogue, but none of them affect the viewing of the film. However, Wu Tao is an exception, he not only has a thick accent and a stiff pronunciation, but also performs stiffly and is very uncomfortable. From verbal expression to unexpressive facial expressions, Wu Tao shows his limitations. ”
When he starred in "The Last Emperor", the 16-year-old Wu Tao was just a first-year high school student at Beijing's Di'anmen Middle School, and a large part of the reason for playing the teenager Puyi was that he spoke fluent English (his grandmother was Swiss).
Later, Wu Tao embarked on the road of acting, and in 1999, he acted in Wang Xiaoshuai's "Bian Dan Girl", with few roles and a blessed figure.
Later, he also became a director himself, and in 2006, he directed a "Ten Days of Heaven", starring Lan Zhenglong, Qin Lan, Xue Haowen, Nie Ning and so on.
"The Last Emperor" did not get the acting award, and the turn of the back pot could not be Wu Tao, and could only blame the old drama bone Peter O'Toole, who played Johnston, for not being out of state. The characters had considered Marlon Brando, Sean Connelly, Jack Nicholson and William Hutt, any of whom could have made a difference, at least winning the film a golden figure for Best Supporting Actor, but in fact, it was Sean Connelli of "The Iron Mask" who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor that year.