By Govindini Murty. Continuing our theme of movies that dramatize Communist Chinese oppression, there is a new film coming out this summer called Mao’s Last Dancer that tells the true story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin who was persecuted by the Communist Chinese for wanting to live and dance in America. The film’s advocacy of democratic freedom is shockingly open and unapologetic – the film’s trailer and poster even feature the tagline: “Before you can fly, you have to be free.”
Directed by Bruce Beresford, Academy Award-winning director of Driving Miss Daisy and such fine films as Tender Mercies and Breaker Morant, Mao’s Last Dancer stars Bruce Greenwood, Joan Chen, Kyle MacLachlan, and Chinese ballet star Chi Cao. The film screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September of 2009, and is set for a U.S. release this August 20, 2010.
The trailer (see below) for Mao’s Last Dancer makes it pretty clear that that the film depicts Chinese Communism in a harsh and uncompromising light. As the Hollywood Reporter notes in its early review, “what the aspiring, ‘Rocky’-like, against-all-odds dancer is escaping is not working-class ignorance and poverty, but hardline Chinese communist officials.” However, Hollywood Reporter gripes about the film’s politics:
“Like most films in this genre, pretty much everything is seen in black and white terms. Thus, despite the fact that the horribleness of America has been drummed into [Li] by Chinese propagandists since childhood (in scenes that are presumably meant to provoke laughter in knowing Western audiences), he finds on visiting that in fact, everything in America is “fantastic,” as he constantly puts it, and everything in China — except for his family — is very, very bad. He says he even dances better in America, because here he is “free.”
It’s ironic that Hollywood Reporter would complain about the film’s “black and white” depiction of things. I would think that it’s the Chinese Communists who behave in an absolutist, black and white manner. The film seems to simply depict this. As for this film being part of a ‘genre’ – what genre? There have been next to no films made in the Western cinema criticizing Chinese Communism in the last thirty or so years (the few I know of are Red Corner, China Cry, The Red Violin, and the upcoming Red Dawn) – so what genre exactly is this? Films that are honest about Communism … but that will be knee-capped by liberal critics? And finally, does the Hollywood Reporter writer really need to put the word ‘free’ in quotes, as if to question that there is any freedom in America? Why is it so surprising that a dancer would prefer dancing in a free, democratic America to performing under statist repression in Communist China?
At least the THR review concedes that Mao’s Last Dancer is crowd-pleasing entertainment:
“Beresford … knows exactly what he is doing at every moment, and most viewers will be more than happy to go along for the ride. … Distributors and programmers who are looking for a film that will move audiences, rather than deeply probe the meaning of life, should give “Mao’s Last Dancer” a serious look. This is the kind of film that critics may look down on but go on to win audience awards at festivals (and, presumably, make money at the box office).”
I am astounded that Mao’s Last Dancer even got made, and by a director as notable as Bruce Beresford. I wonder what subterranean shift is happening in the film industry that movies as critical of Communism as Mao’s Last Dancer and Red Dawn are being made. Are filmmakers finally getting fed up with Hollywood’s apologies for terrorism and dictatorship, and now want to make films standing up for freedom?
Mao’s Last Dancer takes place in the 1960’s-70’s, and tells the moving, true story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin – who is taken from his impoverished family in rural China at the age of 11 by the Communist Chinese to train as a dancer in Madame Mao’s dance school in Beijing. [This is the same Madame Mao - Jiang Qing - who as Chairman Mao's wife was part of the infamous "Gang of Four" that perpetrated the worst horrors of the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s, and who was put on trial and sentenced to life in prison after Mao Zedong's death.] The young Li soon becomes a star pupil due to his talent and indomitable work ethic. At the age of 18, Li is given the opportunity to participate in the first cultural exchange program between Communist China and America and is sent to Houston to dance for the Houston Ballet Company.
When Li arrives in America, he realizes that the Chinese propaganda he’s been taught about the horrors of life under American capitalism and democracy have been a lie. Not only is America more advanced, prosperous, and welcoming than China, but in America Li has the freedom to dance as he was never allowed to dance in China when his art was under the constant supervision of the state. Li wows audiences in Houston with his dancing and falls in love with a beautiful American dancer. Li decides he wants to stay in America, but the Communist Chinese are infuriated by this affront to their national pride (in China, talented artists, athletes, and intellectuals are practically considered to be the property of the state) and try to kidnap Li and drag him back to China. In what looks like a highly dramatic scene, the FBI surround the Chinese consulate in Houston where Li is being detained by the Chinese, and tense negotiations ensue between the U.S. government and the Communist Chinese officials over Li’s fate. Eventually, the Chinese agree to let Li stay in America and dance as he wishes – but at a terrible price: he will never be allowed to return to China or see his family again. This thought torments Li throughout the film.
Mao’s Last Dancer has been picked up for distribution by Samuel Goldwyn Films. An Australian production, Mao’s Last Dancer was released in Australia in December, 2009, and according to IMDB grossed approximately $15 million Australian dollars – pretty good for an indie film that dares to criticize the Communist Chinese, and probably did not get a lot of critical support as a result. I’ve been very excited about Mao’s Last Dancer ever since I saw the trailer, and have been looking forward to its U.S. release. Mao’s Last Dancer is currently set for a limited U.S. release this August 20, 2010. If you believe in freedom and democracy and are opposed to Communist totalitarianism’s suppression of artists, then go out and support this film so that more like it get made.
Posted on Jun 9, 2010 @ 5:30pm.
It’s about time someone made a movie about the Cultural Revolution and how it impacted artists. Tens of millions were killed during the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward, and an entire generation grew up not being allowed to go to school and being forced to work on agricultural communes and collectives instead. Schools were burned down, museums and temples were destroyed, books and artworks burned by the thousands. And that regime is basically still in power, however much they might allow capitalism into certain highly controlled areas. That’s the Communism that the left is still holding up as some great thing to everyone. I hope this film accurately conveys all that.
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Li Cunxin wrote an excellent account of his experiences that this movie is based on – it came out a few years ago and is also called “Mao’s Last Dancer.” The tragedy of China and its artists is a story too little known in the West. There are many talented artists in similar situations. I hope this film can start to correct that.
This looks interesting and romantic, and the trailer was quite moving. The dancing is beautiful, and the sentiments noble. I look forward to seeing this when it comes out.
I felt so sad reading this review because it reminded me of the effects of the Cultural Revolution on two very good friends. One of my closest friends married a widowed Chinese micro-biology professor she had met in Bejing while doing research in the 1980s. He had a grown-up son and daughter. When they were young children he and his first wife showered them with love and were heartbroken when the children were taken away from them in their early teens and forced to live in the countryside with a farm family during the the Cultural Revolution. The parents were not allowed to see them and they were only briefly reunited as a family many years later before the children went off to university. They never reconnected with their parents emotionally and the mother, who was in ill health, died a few years later. Both children were brilliant students and won scholarships to the US where they eventually settled after completing graduate studies. They were generally hostile to their father through most of this period, something that was terribly disappointing to him but which he tried to understand as being the result of the conditioning and indoctrination they received while they were in the countryside. The children were even more hostile when the father married an American woman, my friend, and refused to have anything to do with her. After the father retired, he came to North America with his second wife and went to live on a farm that she had purchased. Although it was some distance from where his children, their spouses (and eventually their grandchildren), were living, the father was still hopeful that they would be able to spend time together. Despite many invitations, the children rarely visited their father and he died a year and a half ago disappointed not to have had the love and company of his children and grandchildren in his later years. Although he tried to explain it all to himself as being a result of the Cultural Revolution, it was still very painful to him and to my friend who could see his disappointment. Few in the west are aware of the great social cost of the Cultural Revolution to families that were part of China’s intelligentsia, one that can be added to the difficulties caused to artists of the type so well documented in “Mao’s Last Dancer”.
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