DVD Review: Mao's Last Dancer

Mao's Last Dancer. 117 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Bruce Beresford. Written by Jan Sardi. Based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin.

Mao Zedong, the leader of the People's Republic of China from its inception in 1949 until his death in 1976, is, today, remembered as one of the most influential and controversial leaders in modern history. While his brand of Communist theory and policies is credited with having laid the foundation stones of contemporary China's position of power and influence in our world, the extremes with which his policies were enacted throughout the new republic have fuelled the controversy associated with the legacy of his rule to this very day.

Li Cunxin is a young peasant boy growing up in a small village in rural China who, at the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution, is inadvertently chosen by visiting delegates to study ballet in the capital, Beijing. The ruling Communist Party's desire for cultural supremacy soon sees him sent to the United States of America as a guest artist with the Houston Ballet, but as his success elevates him to international stardom, the ensuing culture clash finds Li having to choose between his newfound desire for personal and artistic freedom and the profound bond with his beloved family in China.

Sardi's (Shine, The Notebook) meticulous screenplay is absolutely up to the challenge of representing not only the complex political landscape of Communist China in the early 1970s, but also the heady, disciplined world behind the scenes of a major, internationally-renowned ballet company. Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Black Robe, Paradise Road) is one of Australia's most highly-respected directors – and his work here is finely nuanced, sensitive and brimming with cinematic confidence when dealing with the epic qualities a biopic with this kind of global resonance and significance demands.

Overall, however, the ensemble of performances are its weakest link, with only the superb Joan Chen (as Li's mother 'Niang'), Penne Hackforth-Jones (as the Houston Ballet's fearsome 'Cynthia Dodds') and Amanda Schull (as Li's first love-interest 'Elizabeth') really managing to bring the necessary flair to their performances that – whenever they are onscreen – lifts the film from a fairly standard level of engagement to an appreciably higher one. While Birmingham Royal Ballet Principal Dancer Chi Cao is certainly up to the choreographic demands of his role as 'Li', his acting is no match for his dancing, and regrettably, particularly in his many scenes with Bruce Greenwood's Houston Ballet hero 'Ben Stevenson', it all ends up looking and feeling a little too earnest and, ultimately, disingenuous.

At a critical point in the story, Li says "I don't want to walk – I want to fly." The chief disappointment with this film is that it never actually manages to match this simple, yet fearless grand ambition.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.