Mao’s Last Dancer

Li Cunxin is a Chinese Australian former ballet dancer who trained in the Beijing Dance Academy during the reign of Chinese emperor, Mao Zedong and became a highly regarded dancer after his successful career in the United States, which he remained in after defecting from his home country. Currently retired in Australia with his wife and three children after being the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet, his life story and prowess as a dancer made him a very influential figure in the land down under, which led to a version of his story being turned into a feature film in 2009, which housed the same title as Li Cunxin’s autobiographical memoirs which this story is based on, Mao’s Last Dancer.

Chinese dancer, Li Cunxin (played by Chi Cao) is brought to America by ballet director, Ben Stevenson (played by Bruce Greenwood) as an exchange student for the Houston Ballet after being impressed with his talents when travelling to Beijing to scout new talent. Having been moulded into a fierce dancer during his youth (played then by Huang Wen and Chengwu Guo) after going through an arduous training regimen at Madame Mao’s Dance Academy in order to present a sense of superiority to other countries, Li is shocked to see how different America is to how China propagated it to be, and starts to really like his new capitalist lifestyle, especially after falling in love with and quickly marrying American dancer, Elizabeth Mackey (played by Amanda Schull) as to gain residency. With those in the Chinese Communist Party, particularly the Chinese resident diplomat, Consul Zhang (played by Ferdinand Hoang) trying to force Li back to China and threatening that this situation will cause trouble for his parents (played by Joan Chen and Shuangbao Wang) if he doesn’t comply, Li has to decide what is more important to him and what he is willing to give up in order to stay in America?

Met with middling critical reception and meagre box office results, Mao’s Last Dancer tells an important story about an impactful person but sullies a decent chunk of its goodwill with its overly sentimental direction, mostly awkward acting, and sloppy scripting.

Being an Australian/American co-production that was distributed by Roadshow Films and Samuel Goldwyn Films, Mao’s Last Dancer has a lot of Australian ingredients both in front of and behind the camera, which given the popularity that the real Li Cunxin had in Australia, does make sense as the country would proudly want to prop up one of their own treasured celebrities, yet it feels like some of the choices made in creating this film weren’t very benefiting for the narrative in question. While the film carries the same story beats as the original biography, there’s this distinct lack of in-depth analysis and sense of personal revelation present in the film, which can make some of the content feel a tad bit shallow. There’s a great personal story here about a child being trained to be a fantastic dancer in China, only to grow to love America while performing abroad, and the fallout/consequences that comes with dealing with the Chinese government and how this decision affects both him and his family back home, but whether it’s due to the framing of the original memoirs or just the way this movie is constructed and presented, it never quite captures the correct tone or mood. Everything is played a little too safe, everything feels a little too cliched and romanticized, and it feels like there is no exploration of the struggles this man had to go through outside of very predictable problems that feel like something out of a fairy tale. This more than likely comes from the direction by Bruce Beresford, who has a track record of taking truly deep and complex situations and painting over them with an overly sentimental and hollow lens (Driving Miss Daisy is the most common example). The scripting by Jan Sardi isn’t much better, failing at breathing life into the story, making the characters feel real and believable, and at providing this true story with the complexity that it arguably needs.

There are a few interesting elements here that help make this story stand out, mainly the manner in which the Chinese government handled themselves during this period. It highlights the hypocrisy of denouncing the dangers of capitalism and perfection of Communism whilst simultaneously threatening anyone in their regime who has a hint of a different mindset and outright abusing those who show a sign of weakness, how these children are being physically constructed to be picturesque ‘’soldiers’’ within the dancing crowd and pawned off to other locations as a means of demonstrating this feeling of superiority, and even the cultural whiplash a recently immigrated individual would feel, especially during a time when America itself was going through its own dramatic changes. However, the lack of awareness presented in the scripting and performances prevents any nuance, as the messaging of ‘’everything in China is bad, while everything in America is fantastic’’ feels a little sour when it’s presented in such a sugar-coated fashion, as there were undoubtedly several elements that would’ve negatively impacted this man’s stay in America that just aren’t shown here (while it’s horrible and tragic to admit, he probably would’ve faced some form of discrimination that is never even addressed in this film).

The characters have the workings to be pretty interesting as most if not all of them are based on real people, and a biopic is supposed to highlight important individuals that impacted the character of focus in a meaningful way, but the tone creates this feeling of imbalance that leaves a lot of them either too shallow or too cartoonish to really be engaging. This especially rings true for every American in the movie, who are stuck with generic lines, bland personalities and acting that is a little too over-the-top to really be taken seriously. Bruce Greenwood comes off as too flighty and obnoxious, Kyle MacLachlan is given one of the top billing positions, yet is barely in the film and his forceful accent is just ridiculous (which could also be said for Jack Thompsen in a minor but equally annoying role), Amanda Schull is kind of mixed as the character of Elizabeth, with some of her delivery being passable and other times coming off a little stale and flat, and due to how frequently they are show in the story, some can become a little grating to be around. The characters of Chinese descent actually suffer from the opposite problem, as while they are given a bit more respect and are treated a bit more seriously, they are used so minimally that they barely even have the chance to stand out, with the exception of the main lead.

Li as a character feels pretty one-dimensional and emotionally distant, with very few to any moments that give insight into what he is like as a person, more coming across like a shell for other people to put ideas into (even if that was intentionally done to get an idea across, he couldn’t have been that one-note in real life). In spite of this, the acting by Chi Cao is strong enough that you actively enjoy watching him go through these situations, as he comes across as very fragile and unsure, yet also very likeable. Even the teenager version of him played by Chengwu Guo manages to give what is practically a blank slate role a bit of humanity and expression, it’s a nice job by two people who have never acted before or since (they were specifically chosen for their dancing abilities). Joan Chen and Wang Shuang Bao as his parents are also decently acted and are part of a really nice scene where they reunite near the end of the movie, yet they don’t get a lot of screentime either and the movie really could’ve used more time spent from their perspectives to see how they were dealing with their son’s decisions. Even smaller roles like Ferdinand Hoang as the Chinese resident diplomat, and Su Zhang and Gang Jia as Li’s former teachers feel like they are acted much stronger than other roles yet just aren’t given the material or story relevance to feature more often, so they aren’t allowed to be more than just plot chess pieces.

Considering the real-life story is so heavily focused on the subject of ballet dancing, it would make sense to get people who can actually do these intricate routines effectively, and the movie did succeed in finding capable talents. These performers really feel like they get the aggressive daintiness of such an elegant form of dance, and it results in a few memorable performances not just from the expression moves and athleticism, but also from the intriguing productions being put on behind the dancing. While some are more standard operas and generic stories found within any random ballet, others are taken an extra step and use their environment to their advantage (seeing a Chinese ballet seeped with Communist propaganda was still impressive to see despite how overtly uncomfortable it would be as an actual performance), and the shows aren’t the only things with decent production.

While there are no elaborate locations being presented, the set and production design by Hebert Pinter does a good job distinguishing the simple, small, and restrictive life of a poorer province of China against the more casual, open-space, and bombastic streets of America. The cinematography by Peter James occasionally gets some nice environmental shots and portrays the dancing in a clean and wide enough manner so as to allow the audience to witness the skill on display, but the film also has weird visuals cues that happen whenever people are dancing, like slowing down on a certain move or seemingly speeding up or even blurring the footage in random occurrences. It feels very bizarre and almost like a trick to make sure there was a back-up in case the actors couldn’t pull off the moves (which kind of screams of lack of faith). The musical score by Christopher Gordon is nothing special and contains the expect flourishes of both American and Chinese culture, but it’s at least an appreciated touch to have a score that sounds culturally appropriate.

Mao’s Last Dancer feels like a project that was specifically made to pay tribute to a talent that has decided to live, train, and grow in Australia, and while that’s all well and good, the execution does leave a lot to be desired and doesn’t meet the potential of what could’ve come from a movie about this individual. If it had a more grounded approach to its writing, direction and acting, this could’ve been something more monumental and more like other globally successful biopics, but as it is, it’s at best just a run-of-the-mil biopic with a few memorable scenes and an occasional good performance. You’ll be able to watch it and have a harmlessly fine time, but it’s safe to say that it’s not going to wow you the same way the real Li Cunxin would’ve done on the stage.