“In my memory, producing ‘The Last Emperor' was like an eight-month wedding, grand and boisterous. And I had been a bride for the eight months. Everyday, I waited for Bertolucci to lift my veil and fall in love with me…”

Wrote Chinese actress Joan Chen, who starred in “The Last Emperor” as the last empress Wanrong, on her Weibo account in mourning over the death of Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci.

The Italian director died on Monday at the age of 77.

In the post, Chen recalled her impression of meeting with the director in Los Angeles, saying that he was then  "deep in love with Chinese culture”. Chen called him a knowledgeable man and a poet.

“The Last Emperor” is definitely one the most renowned of Bertolucci's films in China, as it is an epic about China's last emperor, Puyi, who ruled the country from 1906 to 1912 during the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912).

During his life, he went from the highest ruler in the country to being a prisoner and then to life as an ordinary civilian in New China. He witnessed the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

The film swept the Academy Awards in 1987, and pocketed nine Oscar statuettes, including the Best Picture and Best Director.

It was the first and last film shot in Beijing's Forbidden City. In April 1986, the Chinese Ministry of Culture issued a regulation that banned all shooting activities at what are deemed to be cultural relic structures. Bertolucci and his team filed the application just before the ban.

Actress Vivian Wu also made a post on Monday, saying that she couldn't hold back her tears after receiving the news.

“I will always remember what the director told me at the Forbidden City. ‘I'm insanely in love with your country, China, and I'm insanely in love with the Chinese people, and the culture',” Wu wrote on her Weibo account.

“I hadn't thought about you for a long time, and today when I did think of you, I found that I remember everything about you,” Chen said in her second post.