MAO’S LAST DANCER LEAPS FROM THE SCREEN
Directed by Bruce Beresford, Mao’s Last Dancer is a biopic based on the 2003 autobiography of Li Cunxin (played by Chi Cao). With flashbacks throughout, the film traces Li’s life from 1961, when he is selected at grade school for ballet training in Beijing (a project of Mao’s wife), his discovery by choreographer Ben Stevenson (played by Bruce Greenwood) during a trip to China in 1978, and additional training with Stevenson’s Houston Ballet in 1979. Then in 1981, he marries an American, Elizabeth (played by Amanda Schull), and defects. He later revisits China, and his parents eventually visit him in Houston. Although much of the plot focuses on his struggle to succeed and those who helped him along the way, with lots of ballet enjoyment, dramatic changes in the politics of China provide the most important backdrop to his meteoric rise. The most notable incident is when he is imprisoned 21 hours at the Chinese consulate in Houston, how he is pressured to return to China, and then released through the intervention of the media, immigration attorney Charles Foster (played by Kyle MacLachlan), and a conversation between George H. W. Bush and Hua Gaofung. Ending titles reveal current positions of the principals, including Li’s remarriage and new residence in Australia. The Political Film Society has nominated Mao’s Last Dancer as best film exposé of 2010. MH