A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Follow-up to the TV trilogy “Heimat”, this time for cinemas, set again in the fictional village Schabbach in the Hunsrück region of Rhineland-Palatinate.