MOVIES - April 25, 1988

Thousands of people packed Taiwan movie theaters Saturday to catch their first glimpse of China in the Oscar-winning film “The Last Emperor,” according to Reuters. The Nationalist government lifted a 39-year ban on films shot in China to allow the screening of director Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic that scans the history of modern China from emperors to Communist cadres. Government censors cut parts of the film considered to contain historical inaccuracies about the role of the Nationalists, who ruled China after the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty in 1911 but were swept from power in 1949 by the communists. In a related story, the Oscar-winning film will open in June in China, the government said late last week.