Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor has been out on DVD before, in both the original 165-minute theatrical version that won nine Academy Awards and the longer 218-minute TV version, the latter having been stamped with the label “Director’s Cut.” That’s an incorrect label, says Bernardo Bertolucci, who should know. On the Criterion blog “On Five,” DVD producer Kim Hendrickson writes about working with Bertolucci on preparing their lavish four-disc edition and Bertolucci’s remark that the longer TV version “in my opinion is not much different from the other one, just a little bit more boring…” According to the commentary track on the disc, the TV version was actually completed first and then Bertolucci continued to pare down and shape the film to his ultimate version.

The Criterion set features both versions, and the theatrical cut features commentary by Bertolucci (who launches in to the film before he remembers to introduce himself), screenwriter Mark Peploe (who calls it “the biggest screenwriting experience of my life”), producer Jeremy Thomas, and composer/actor Ryuichi Sakamoto, all recorded separately and edited together in a dense, meaty that builds on the accumulation of observations and insights. The final two discs of the set are filled with marvelous archival documentaries and TV programs and new interviews. “The Italian Traveler, Bernardo Bertolucci,” a 53-minute documentary directed by Bertolucci’s old assistant director Fernand Mozskowicz, is a meandering tour with the director as he reflects on past films while visiting the locations of 1900 and Last Tango in Paris and others, and ends with his trip to China to make The Last Emperor. Bertolucci narrates the whole way, and leaves with a thank you to China for giving him yet more places and experiences and people to draw from. There is no narration in Paolo Brunatto’s observational “Bernardo Bertolucci’s Chinese Adventure,” a behind-the-scenes look at the process of filmmaking, from on-set preparations and direction to editing to Ryuchi Sakamoto recording the score. And that’s just a start.

Bernardo Bertolucci’s magnificent epic tells the dramatic story of Pu Yi (John Lone), the last Chinese emperor. Crowned at age three, he’s a prisoner of his own palace, a puppet ruler manipulated by both the Western powers and the occupying Chinese, and finally a project for re-education by the Communist Regime, Pu Yi is a man buffeted by history, a figurehead whose power ends at the walls of the Forbidden City. Bertolucci’s production is sweeping and lavish – this was the first foreign production granted access to film within the walls of the Forbidden City – and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro uses color like a painter on an epic canvas. At the center of the spectacle, however, is the story of a boy raised to believe in his own divinity and a man who learns to become a simple human being against the backdrop of China’s volatile history. Winner of nine Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Oscars for director Bernardo Bertolucci, the screenplay adaptation, and Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography).

Also new this week is The Legend of the Black Scorpion, which was Hong Kong’s submission to the Academy Awards for Foreign Language Film in 2007. Haven’t heard of it? Probably because this lavish Chinese reworking of “Hamlet” with a flourish of martial arts spectacle was originally released to theaters under the title The Banquet. Read more »