But Mao trained his People's Army with great vigor and eventually the communists overcame their rival factions, both the Japanese and the Chinese nationalists, who later fled to Taiwan. Pu Yi was captured by the Russians during the war, and the Russians turned him over to the Chinese, as this supposed supporter of the Japanese was the 'enemy.' But it is clear from the film that despite the intense eternal strife within China and the terrible suffering inflicted upon the land during the Pacific War by Japan, the emperor had little deeply held inner political convictions of his own, either communist or capitalist, nationalist or Chinese. He seems immune to the events and the greater, wider scope of history. He had little sense of how it was to live as an ordinary civilian, even to care for himself without constant overseeing by others. Until he lost his position as emperor...
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