Film Review: Lai Shi, China’s Last Eunuch (Last Eunuch in China) 中國最後一個太監 (1988) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)
I rated it 8/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
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There is a quiet tragedy at the heart of “Lai Shi, China’s Last Eunuch,” a 1988 Hong Kong film that understands how history can render a man’s greatest sacrifice meaningless. Young Lai Shi (Max Mok), born into rural poverty in the dying days of the Qing Dynasty, hears tales of eunuchs who rose to power and wealth serving the emperor. In a moment of desperate ambition—encouraged by his family—he submits to the brutal ritual of castration. It is an act of faith in an ancient system that is already collapsing around him.
Director Jacob Cheung, in his feature debut, handles this material with surprising sensitivity. The film never sensationalizes the physical horror; instead, it focuses on the deeper wound: a life defined by what has been irrevocably taken away. Mok brings a wide-eyed vulnerability to the role, evolving from an eager boy dreaming of palace glory to a man adrift in a modernizing China that has no place for him. His performance is the film’s quiet anchor—earnest, bewildered, and ultimately heartbreaking.
The story follows Lai Shi as he navigates the fall of the empire, finds work in a Beijing opera troupe (where Sammo Hung appears in a sympathetic supporting turn), reconnects with a childhood sweetheart (Irene Wan), and ultimately becomes one of the very last eunuchs attached to the remnants of the imperial household. The film is loosely inspired by the life of Sun Yaoting, the real man who lived until 1996 and carried the final living memory of the Forbidden City’s inner world. Cheung uses this framework not for sweeping epic grandeur but for intimate human drama: the loneliness of a man who can neither fully join the world of men nor escape his identity as a relic.
Visually, the film has the rich, slightly stylized look of late-80s Hong Kong cinema—atmospheric sets that evoke both the faded opulence of the palace and the gritty streets of Republican-era Beijing. The opera sequences add moments of color and energy, contrasting sharply with Lai Shi’s personal confinement. There are touches of humor and warmth, particularly in the opera troupe scenes, but the dominant tone is one of melancholy resignation. This is not a film that rages against historical forces; it simply observes a man caught between two eras, belonging to neither.
What elevates “Lai Shi, China’s Last Eunuch” is its compassion. It refuses to turn its protagonist into either a victim or a hero. He is simply a man who made a terrible, irreversible choice in pursuit of a better life, only to watch the promise evaporate. The film’s closing stretches carry a poignant weight, as we realize we are watching the end of something ancient and strange—an entire tradition of servitude and power that spanned millennia.
This is not a flawless picture. The pacing occasionally drifts, and some plot turns feel convenient rather than inevitable. Yet its emotional honesty and central performance more than compensate. In the end, “Lai Shi, China’s Last Eunuch” is a thoughtful meditation on ambition, loss, and the cruel ironies of history. (Neo, 2026)