Machiko Kyô is a member of a branch of the Meiji family, and so is chosen by the army to wed the brother of the puppet emperor of Manchuria. Her husband, Eiji Funakoshi, is a well-meaning man who cherishes their daughter and treats her well. But with the ending of the Second World War and the dissolution of Manchuria as its own nominal country, she finds herself and her daughter in a whirlwind of chaos.

Kinuyo Tanaka's movie strikes me as the Japanese equivalent of the suffering-in-mink tearjerker of Hollywood that I don't care for, but turns into actual, degrading suffering at the end, and a fervent hope for peace and friendship. Nonetheless, Miss Tanaka does not neglect the beauty of Manchuria, nor the sumptuous loveliness of court life. Cinematographer Kimio Watanabe is to be commended for his strong lighting, particularly his choice of filters for the mountains of northern China.

This is a beautifully shot if rather lacklustre story of a young woman, of good Japanese family, who is selected to marry the brother of the Emperor of the puppet-state of Manchukuo. Hiro (Machiko Kyô) is none too impressed with the prospect of leaving her comfortable family home to go and live with a stranger, but quickly we discover that her betrothed - Fuketsu (Eiji Funakoshi) - is a decent man and that the two of them live a comfortable but by no means Imperial life. Indeed, they frequently run short of money but his brother Pu Yi appears powerless to do much in the face of the controlling Kwantung military that sustains his fragile rule in the face of an increasingly successful Chinese People's Liberation Army. It is when it becomes clear that the reign is soon to end, and that their society is crumbling that Hiro and the former Empress are captured and must endure hitherto unknown hardships as they trek the length of the country before being imprisoned. The style of the production mixes well the end of the deferential era of life in China and of the rise of the Communist regime that was anything but. The photography, especially as it captures their journey at the end, is effective at giving us a sense of just how tough life had become - even for the soldiers; and the musical score accompanies the whole story well. There is, though, a distinct lack of pace and structure to the thing. It looks good, but the direction lacks impetus and the characters are not really developed very thoroughly. That is a shame because the autobiographical elements could have been used to more potent effect in this otherwise rather underwhelming narrative. I saw this recently on a big (ish) screen and it was well worth it - even if it did make me wonder more why we never see Bertolucci's "Last Emperor" (1987) on general release, or even television, nowadays!