Mao’s Last Dancer (2009)
"Before you can fly, you have to be free."
Overview
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.
Top Cast
Amanda Schull
Elizabeth Mackey
Chi Cao
Li Cunxin - adult
C
Chengwu Guo
Li Cunxin - teenage
W
Wen Bin Huang
Li Cunxin - boy
Joan Chen
Niang
Bruce Greenwood
Ben Stevenson
Kyle MacLachlan
Charles Foster
Jack Thompson
US Federal Judge
C
Camilla Vergotis
Mary McKendry
M
Madeleine Eastoe
Lori
S
Steven Heathcote
Bobby Cordner
Aden Young
Dilworth
Wang Shuangbao
Barbara Bush
Herself (archive footage) (uncredited)
George H. W. Bush
Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
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