Mao’s Last Dancer

Movie Summary of Mao’s Last Dancer by Michael The Moviegoer.

MAO’S LAST DANCER = ***

“Dirty Dancing”

Usually when a film wins the Oscar for Best Picture, the director of that film goes on to have a long career of interesting and important films. Poor Bruce Beresford. Nothing he’s done since 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy” has resonated with anyone.

Beresford’s latest film “Mao’s Last Dancer” is one of his best, but still somehow lacks a certain zing that makes for really great cinema. But it certainly aspires to be that.

From the screenwriter of “Shine”, this is the true story of Li Cunxin, a peasant Chinese child who became an international ballet star and defected to the United States in 1981 while dancing with the Houston ballet.

Without permits, Beresford reportedly filmed on many locations in China and smuggled the reels out of the country. Those scenes, in Mandarin with English subtitles, try hard to look like the work of famed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou. But the film does not tell its story chronologically. It jumps back and forth between present-day Houston and the flashbacks of China. The switches are jarring and intrusive. They don’t really flow together.

But the ballet choreography by Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon is spectacular. It makes “Mao’s Last Dancer” a must-see for anyone who appreciates ballet, or a great true human interest story involving the battle between communism and capitalism.

The lead role belongs to newcomer Chi Cao, and he’s quite good. Bruce Greenwood is fabulously flamboyant as his American teacher and choreographer.

Somewhere in the middle, the film becomes a tense political thriller as Li Cunxin is abducted by Chinese officials while inside the Chinese embassy. But some of the more melodramatic moments play like a Lifetime Channel TV movie. The dance scenes are all amazing, even if there are too many cutaways to audience reaction shots.

DVD Double Feature:
In 1985’s “White Nights”, Mikhail Baryshnikov plays a legendary Soviet dancer who has defected from Russia, but finds himself back there and arrested after surviving a plane crash. There he meets a U.S. army deserter played by tap dancer Gregory Hines. This dance-filled political thriller was directed by Taylor Hackford.

Michael The Moviegoer

Mao's Last Dancer [ NON-USA FORMAT, Blu-Ray, Reg.B Import - Australia ]