Mao's Last Dancer (2010)
Average Rating: 6.1/10
Reviews Counted: 73
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 33
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 23
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 10
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 5,868
Movie Info
The true story of Li Cunxin and his journey from rural China to the bright lights of ballet stardom is brought to the screen in this biographical drama from director Bruce Beresford. In 1972, 11-year-old Li Cunxin (Huang Wenbin) is living with his parents, Niang (Joan Chen) and Dia (Wang Shuangbao), and six siblings while attending a tumbledown school in Shandog province. Li's life changes when representatives of Madame Mao's Beijing Dance Academy visit his school, and he is one of several
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Cast
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Bruce Greenwood
Ben Stevenson -
Kyle MacLachlan
Charles Foster -
Joan Chen
Niang -
Chi Cao
Li (as an adult) -
Shuangbao Wang
Dia -
Chengwu Guo
Li (as a teenager) -
Huang Wen Bin
Li (as a child) -
Aden Young
Dilworth -
Madeleine Eastoe
Lori -
Camilla Vergotis
Mary -
Penne Hackforth-Jones
Cynthia Dodds -
Jack Thompson
Judge Woodrow Seals -
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Mao's Last Dancer Trailer & Photos
All Critics (74) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (33) | DVD (1)
Bruce Beresford's biopic of Li Cunxin, the Chinese ballet dancer who defected while on a student visa in Houston in 1981, is sometimes the movie equivalent of Oscar Meyer cold cuts. But the dancing is pure caviar.
Top CriticFeel-good movie about a Chinese dancer presses all the right buttons.
Australian director Bruce Beresford handles the culture-clash aspects of the story with a surprising lack of subtlety.
Lovely and astounding, Mao's Last Dancer is a modern epic of art and ambition triumphing oppression.
Too often, though, the film plods along on the ground.
Ballet star Li Cunxin's best-selling autobiography gets a curiously tepid treatment in this 2009 adaptation by director Bruce Beresford.
Missteps prevent ballet drama from reaching great heights.
...somehow makes the extraordinary true story it's based on seem like common corn while succeeding in modest ways.
Woefully creaky and corny.
The script is far too melodramatic, and the performances ... are hamfisted and overwrought.
Mao's Last Dancer is such a profoundly moving story, it's hard not to get drawn in as Li must decide how much he's willing to sacrifice for his American dream.
Debuting actor Chi Cao's athleticism is the movie's most striking element.
Ballet is kinda like ice hockey. It's more impressive when you're up close at the real deal. When you're 30 yards away, the snap of a slipper after a 90-lb ballerina lands a glissade is just as impressive as a 290-lb hockey goon hitting the boards.
Mao's Last Dancer is an epic tale of love and betrayal, triumph and heartbreak, that captures the real-life drama and emotion of one man's search for freedom. Well, it almost is.
Whenever Beresford concerns himself with politics or, even worse, personal drama, Dancer falls limply to the ground.
The movie works, thanks in large part to Chi's performance.
Let the trumpets blare for artistic freedom of expression that is perfectly reflected in this uplifting and moving biopic.
Beresford knows the only way to deal with schmaltz is to just go ahead and embrace it.
Beresford and the entire cast cover the proceedings with a light touch and just the right amount of gravitas (given the situation).
There is some lovely ballet in Mao's Last Dancer. And it's great to see Joan Chen on-screen. And I'm out of nice things to say about the movie.
Beresford can't even represent Li's dancing (the reason we're meant to root for this little foreigner that could in the first place) with a modicum of dynamism.
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Movie: ID: 770807574 Title: Mao's Last Dancer Release Date: 2010-08-20 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 2 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- Maos letzter Tänzer (DE)
- El último bailarín de Mao (ES)
