MAO’S LAST DANCER

IN ENGLISH & MANDARIN WITH SUBTITLES. Bruce Beresford delivers one of his best films in the story of Chinese ballet star Li Cunxin. Like Nureyev and Baryshnikov, Li Cunxin was a ballet dancer too talented to be hidden from the eyes of the West, and too canny not to defect at the earliest opportunity. He made his grand jeté to freedom in 1981 while a guest artist at the Houston Ballet. Later, he moved to Australia with his wife and joined the Australian Ballet. His memoirs were a surprise international bestseller. Spotted at Madame Mao's Beijing Dance Academy by Houston Ballet director (Bruce Greenwood), Li (played by Birmingham Royal Ballet principal Chi Chao) is seconded to America, where he quickly realises that the West is not the den of decadence the party's propagandists would make out. After falling for an American dancer (Amanda Shull), Li starts hatching plans to stay with the help of immigration lawyer (Kyle MacLachlan), but faces the agonising possibility of never seeing his family back in China again. The production enjoyed a surprising amount of access to Chinese locations and these scenes are exquisite to look at. Mao's Last Dancer's two hours go by in a flash, and the ballet sequences are an added visual treat in a film with an embarrassment of riches. Bruce Beresford has delivered one of his best movies. –Time Out Australia