Mao’s Last Dancer

Mao’s Last Dancer (2009)

Before you can fly, you have to be free.

At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.

Date of release
2009-10-01
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (126)
Runtime
1h 57m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Bruce Beresford

Casting

  • Bruce Greenwood — Ben Stevenson
  • Kyle MacLachlan — Charles Foster
  • Joan Chen — Niang
  • Chi Cao — Li Cunxin - adult
  • Amanda Schull — Elizabeth Mackey
  • Wang Shuangbao — Dia
  • Aden Young — Dilworth
  • Jack Thompson — Judge Woodrow Seals
  • Penne Hackforth-Jones — Cynthia Dodds
  • Chengwu Guo — Li Cunxin - teenage
  • Wen Bin Huang — Li Cunxin - boy
  • Madeleine Eastoe — Lori

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