Mao's Last Dancer

Name: Mao's Last Dancer
Genre: Drama
Released: August 20, 2010
Duration: 117 min
Rating: 55
Cast: Bruce Greenwood, Chi Cao, Kyle MacLachlan

2010

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Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Ratings

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5.3

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5.3	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Ratings

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Mao's Last Dancer

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Movie Details & Credits

ATO Pictures | Release Date: August 20, 2010 | PG

Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Chi Cao, Kyle MacLachlan

Summary: A drama based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin. At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he fell in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as aA drama based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin. At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he fell in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.… Expand

Director: Bruce Beresford

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: PG

Runtime: 117 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Rex Reed

This first-cabin director returns to top form, with this revelatory film his best in years. More than that, Mao's Last Dancer is a masterpiece. Read full review

Rick Groen

The delight of this film isn't so much in the tale as the telling. Read full review

Ella Taylor

Likable as this full-hearted and uplifting movie is, though, I wish that Beresford had not fallen into the familiar trap of dividing Chinese characters into two roles: brutal, ideology-spouting apparatchiki; or parable-spouting, salt-of-the-earth proletarians, the better to show off by contrast the open society of the West. Read full review

Movieline Michelle Orange

The degree to which they are willing to share their bodies with the world, seeming to reach out for it with each impossible extension, drawing it in with every reeling arabesque, suggests a desire for engagement that is visceral, human, and true in all the ways this film is not. Read full review

Sheri Linden

Director Bruce Beresford ("Driving Miss Daisy") knows how to tug heartstrings but as he moves the inspirational material toward its tear-jerker finale, it's often hampered by awkward melodrama. Read full review

Lou Lumenick

There are nice cameos by Joan Chen and Kyle MacLachlan as Li's mother and lawyer, respectively. Read full review

Mike Hale

The final image - a freeze frame of a pas de deux staged to resemble a triumphal Communist poster - perfectly captures the film's overall effect: it's strenuously brainless. Read full review

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User Reviews

PHL

Sep 16, 2010

I agree with Rex Reed. This is a masterpiece. I do not believe the audience is being manipulated. After all, this is based on a true story. It's a moving story and depicts the triumph of art, freedom and knowing your own heart. Chi Cao is magnificant.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

BHBarry

Sep 3, 2010

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

EdwinLopez

Jun 30, 2011

I loved this movie, and I don't usually like stories based on true stories. It was definitely a masterpiece and I can't wait to watch it again. I'm not much into ballet but the story was so good that I enjoyed every minute of it. I even has a tear in my eye at the end of the movie becauseI loved this movie, and I don't usually like stories based on true stories. It was definitely a masterpiece and I can't wait to watch it again. I'm not much into ballet but the story was so good that I enjoyed every minute of it. I even has a tear in my eye at the end of the movie because it touched my heart so much. Must see!… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

TVJerry

Oct 3, 2010

This beautiful film is based on true events. A young Chinese boy is selected to be trained as a ballet dancer. He travels to the US as an adult and becomes a star. When he decides he wants to stay here, it ignites an international furor. The performances are all solid and the story (althoughThis beautiful film is based on true events. A young Chinese boy is selected to be trained as a ballet dancer. He travels to the US as an adult and becomes a star. When he decides he wants to stay here, it ignites an international furor. The performances are all solid and the story (although somewhat predictable) is told with skill and emotion by director Bruce Beresford. NOTE: I actually saw this in Sweden, but had a translator to help with the Chinese parts.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

Shiira

Sep 10, 2010

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It's like something straight out of Mel Brooks' "The Producers", the ballet dancers equipped with their armaments, but "Springtime for Zedong" is no laughing matter, and nobody knows that better than Chan(Su Zhang), who wants his dancers' pieces to remain apolitical. During a performance for party dignitaries, the Beijing Arts Academy instructor makes his opinion known with tears; Chan's dissatisfaction with the company's new direction will seal his fate as a condemned man, a counter-revolutionary, when in fact, he's merely an aesthete, a man who descries bad taste and is chafed accordingly. Bad taste? That's how Brooks made his name back in 1968, as "The Producers" caused a commotion for its light-hearted depiction of the Nazi party, but "Mao's Last Dancer" helps explicate what Brooks was lampooning: government-sanctioned art. Red, a color that can symbolize a wide array of things in art, is reduced to a single connotation in the propaganist-inspired art direction which bedecks the transformed stage, and that's why Chan wants to steal the color back from the political arena, and back to the personal one where it rightfully belongs. Chan can't save ballet, so he saves the ballet dancer from being compromised by ideology; he chooses Li Cunxin(Cao Chi), the academy's most promising pupil, whom the teacher wants to re-educate, since the dancer participates in the Cultural Revolution's campaign against intellectualism, by giving his young charge a tape. Whereas the video in Gore Verbinski's "The Ring"(the American remake of Hideo Nakata's "Ringu") used Soviet montage to kill the viewer, Chan unleashes a grainy image of Mikhail Baryshnikov in action to kill the ideology that infects Li's mind before it reaches his heart. It's the pivotal moment in "Mao's Last Dancer" because the contraband tape westernizes this child of Mao Zedong and the People's Republic. He learns "art for art's sake"(Oscar Wilde's rallying cry against intervening philistines), in Baryshnikov's leaps, turns, jumps, and pirouettes, and unlearns art for China's sake. Exposure to the legendary Russian danseur gives Li the edge over his compatriots when Ben(Bruce Greenwood), the director for the Houston Ballet tours post-Zedong China. That's because the farmer's son from Shangdong Province dances like a westerner. Although Li Cunxin's story is one worth knowing, "Mao's Last Dancer" is predictable every step of the way, just like any biopic, take your pick("Ray", "Walk the Line", "The Buddy Holly Story"); we know how it's going to end. By the time Li's parents see their son perform live in person for the first time, the moviegoer knows that Chan's long-term plans for the flexible primary color is complete. As the expatriate hugs his parents on the theater stage, nobody remembers what red was for back home. Because now, red is a free agent; red is love.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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