The Last Emperor
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Category: Music CD
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDAudio: English (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 1991-09-09
Music Label: Virgin Records Us
Soundtracks:
- First Coronation
- Open the Door
- Where Is Armo?
- Picking up Brides
- Last Emperor
- Rain (I Want a Divorce)
- Baby (Was Born Dead)
- Last Emperor
- Last Emperor (Theme)
- Main Title Theme (The Last Emperor) - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Byrne, David
- Picking a Bride - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Byrne, David
- Bed - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Byrne, David
- Wind, Rain and Water - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Byrne, David
- Paper Emperor - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Traditional
- Lunch - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Su, Cong
- Red Guard - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Traditional
- Emperor's Waltz - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Strauss Jr., Johann
- Red Guard Dance - Ryuichi Sakamoto, Traditional
Music reviews of The Last Emperor
Music Review: Delights in the Forbidden City
Rating: 5 Stars
"The Last Emperor" is one of the most stunning soundtracks ever made. It's an amazing collaboration between Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (of the Yellow Magic Orchestra) and David Byrne (New Wave,the Talking Heads) Sakamoto took on Western sensibilities. Byrne explored the subtleties of Eastern music (he has gone on to write the "Big Love Hymnal" for the second season of the HBO series)
The opening theme of "The Last Emperor" characterizes the whole movie- the bittersweet, melancholy life of Pu Yi, China's last emperor. It embodies the Forbidden City in its twilight years. When Pu Yi is torn from his parents to be enthroned as a living god, the soundtrack depicts his pain. There's the sensuality of Pu Yi taking his wife and his concubine. The music also shows his depravity in his puppet kingdom of Manchukuo,as well as his wife's decline in opium addiction. The pomp and circumstance of the opening themes is supplanted with the militaristic uniformity of the Communists. "The Last Emperor" soundtrack is powerful in its depiction of Chinese history.
"The Last Emperor" gets the diadem as one of the best soundtracks ever composed.
Description of The Last Emperor
The Last Emperor, director Bernardo Bertolucci's epic tale of Pu Yi, the exiled final potentate of China's 3,000-year old Qing dynasty, was the big winner at the 1988 Academy Awards, taking Oscars for (among others) Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score. The composing trio of Sakamoto/Byrne/Su was an unusual one to be sure, but it's clearly Sakamoto who carries the day here. The avant-garde trained/former Yellow Magic Orchestra pop mastermind crafted a seamless fusion of grand Western themes, Asian shadings, and his own deliciously distinct timbrel sensibilities; an accessible if deceptively modern classicism. Not surprisingly given his Talking Heads roots, Byrne's efforts are more rhythmic and minimal, yet his consuming passion for world music thoroughly evidences itself as well. His lyric and lilting "Main Title Theme" (one of the film's unusual elements was its use of two main themes by separate composers) may offer a pleasant surprise to listeners overly familiar with his pop work. The composer Cong Su is represented by just one cut; but it's a gentle, ethereal spin on Chinese folk influences that fits well with his fellow composers' work. --Jerry McCulleyGeneral CDs
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