Fun Facts: The Last Emperor
• The first feature film granted permission by the Chinese government to be filmed in the Forbidden City. A documentary produced and directed by Lucy Jarvis for NBC Films Ltd. in 1973 named "The Forbidden City" was the first western film permitted to film within the Forbidden City.
• This was the first western film made in and about the country to be produced with full Chinese government cooperation since 1949.
• Most of the exterior and interior scenes of Henry Pu-yi's mansion during his years as a puppet emperor for the Japanese (most notably the "Coronation Ball" scene) were filmed at the Imperial Palace in Changchun, where the real Pu Yi lived from 1934 to 1945. The mansion is now a museum.
• The production tracked down several people from Henry Pu-yi's life, including the prison governor and his manservant, to unofficially advise the director.
• Henry Pu-yi's younger brother, Pu Chieh, and Li Wenda, who helped Pu Yi write his autobiography, were brought in to act as advisors on the film.
• 19,000 extras were needed over the course of the film.
• Hairdresser Giancarlo De Leonardis imported 2,200 pounds of human hair to make the elaborate wigs needed for the court. For the coronation scenes, his staff spent ten days training fifty Chinese to pin wigs and plaits onto two thousand extras in under two hours.
• The 250-acre Forbidden City, built in the early 15th century with high walls up to 50 feet thick, provided an excellent soundproof filming environment - although the Chinese crews were unused to making films with live sound recording.
