Making 'Mao's Last Dancer' required some fancy footwork

"Mao's Last Dancer," the new movie directed by Bruce Beresford, tells the true story of Li Cunxin, a ballet star from China whose defection to the U.S. in 1981 while a resident at the Houston Ballet prompted a dramatic 21-hour standoff with Chinese officials.

During the shooting of the movie, the crew became intimately acquainted with the draconian caprices of China's Communist Party. Just as production was getting underway, the Film Bureau in Beijing rejected the filmmakers' request for permission to shoot in China. The decision forced the director to shoot significant parts of the movie in secret in areas around Beijing.

"Mao's Last Dancer" is a biopic of the inspirational variety. (The producer, Jane Scott, and screenwriter, Jan Sardi, worked on the movie "Shine.") Playing the role of Li as an adult is Chinese-British ballet performer Chi Cao, whose father taught Li at the Beijing Dance Academy. The role of Ben Stevenson, the former artistic director of the Houston Ballet, is played by Bruce Greenwood.

Read the full story on the making of "Mao's Last Dancer" as well as the Times' review of the movie.

-- David Ng

Photo: Chi Cao and Camilla Vergotis in a scene from "Mao's Last Dancer." Credit: Simon Cardwell / Samuel Goldwyn Films

Comments

[huanguo]

Since how long there havent been any defector from China? It is really quite dissappointing and frustrating that nobody among hundred thousands Chinese free traveling tourists will turn defector nowasday, damn!

[BD]

I live in Mobile and have been wanting since 2009 to see this movie, but could not anywhere closer than Houston, where it showed in ONE theater in River Oaks. None in Atlanta, not even in New Orleans, were in the internet listings. At least you would expect art houses to show it. Yet it is running held over in St Louis and Chicago, or so I have read. I cannot even buy it on DVD in "American Format", until the end of March, almost 2 years after it was first shown in Australia and at the Toronto Film Festival. It IS availalble elsewhere in the world on various international formats.

What gives here? It is suspicious, to say the least, and smelling a dead fish, I can almost "betcha" (I am not a Palin follower) that international politics is involved. I mean US negotiations with China, on business issues. Essentially the powers in China do not believe in the free flow of information, and it seems they must run this country also. After all, they own 10% of our national debt, don't they?

This would be a great story for Frontline or 60 Minutes.

B