MOVIES - June 9, 1988

Cultural officials in China are holding up the premiere of “The Last Emperor,” winner of nine Oscars, until August. A China Film Bureau spokesman said Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic--scheduled to debut in Beijing this month--was still being dubbed into Chinese, but there has been speculation that the Chinese release of the film had run into conservative opposition and would be censored by Chinese officials. The movie was cut by censors in Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. Criticisms of “The Last Emperor” have appeared in the official press, including charges that it had “taken too many liberties with historical facts and leaned too much toward vulgarity.”