Who was hacked to death?
It is mentioned that one of the old women was hacked to pieces.
Who? Do they mean the corpse of the previous Empress, or the old ladies who were on a boat in the water garden?
The corpse of the late Empress Dowager.
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MovieChat Forums > The Last Emperor (1988) Discussion > Who was hacked to death?
Yes it was the empress dowager who passes the throne to Pu Yi and was drinking turtle soup. She deserves a movie or trilogy of her own as she controlled China. She seized power and blocked reforms, took money from the navy for renovations leading to the disastrous defeat of China in the first sino-japanese war. Then 8 powers attacked China and her palace was sacked, had to pay huge reparations which really crippled China. I think after that she got the message that maintaining her own power ought not be her only goal and she initiated reforms but it was too late.
As you can imagine she was rather ruthless and made plenty of enemies. She is also blamed for alot of the suffering in China during her reign - rightfully or wrongly. Exhuming a corpse of someone like that after death to hack it to pieces or whip it etc happens several times in chinese history.