'Mao's Last Dancer" is a movie that most likely will warm the cockles of the hearts of those who see it. It will be praised by many for being a moving, inspiring true story of one man's search for identity, liberation and, most of all, freedom. It's the sort of sweeping tale that the whole family can enjoy.
Now, let me tell you why I loathe this movie with an unshakable passion.
I tried to give "Dancer" a chance, mainly because it's set mostly in my hometown of Houston. It provides shots of many landmarks I recognize oh-so-well. (However, it is funny that the movie doesn't give an obligatory shot of the famous Astrodome, which is now practically a decaying, condemned building.) The movie made me feel homesick, which just happens to be the same plight our protagonist, Li Cunxin (Chi Cao), goes through.
Li was just a boy when he was recruited by the Chinese government, taken away from his family and sent to Beijing, where he is forced to study ballet in an unemotional style. Nonetheless, Li manages to add some emotion to his dance moves. This catches the eye of the director of the Houston Ballet (Bruce Greenwood, rocking a British accent and major gay attitude), who gets Li a three-month contract to come to America and dance.
Touching down in the Lone Star State in the early '80s, he gets wowed by all the things this capitalist country has to offer: malls, Pepsi, T-shirts with funny sayings on them and, eventually, willowy women as he hooks up with a budding, virginal dancer (Amanda Schull). That feeling soon becomes mutual, as audiences get won over by Li and his whirling-dervish moves. Unfortunately, time is almost up for our visitor. And though he and his Stateside friends would like an extended stay, the Chinese government isn't keen on giving him up.
Based on Li's autobiography, "Dancer" is directed by Australian director Bruce Beresford. I gotta say, for a man who once gave us the polished Oscar winners "Tender Mercies" and "Driving Miss Daisy," this is some dry filmmaking we have here. We're talking wedding-chicken dry.
Prosaic and dull, "Dancer" progresses from being just a tedious, sluggishly paced biopic to a shamelessly schmaltzy Oscar-baiter. By the time the movie got to its tear-jerking climax, complete with a smirk-worthy final shot that seriously made me get my "Oh, c'mon!" on, I was more annoyed than moved.
It doesn't help matters much that, with the exception of Greenwood, Joan Chen (as Li's loyal mom) and Kyle MacLachlan (slapping on a good-ol'-boy accent as Li's attorney), the cast is peppered with limited-range thespians. Cao may be a graceful-as-all-get-out dancer (the only time the movie achieves any spectacular vision is when ol' dude is dancing), but the boy needs some work in the carrying-a-whole-movie department.
While "Mao's Last Dancer" obviously brings home the all-American message that freedom and independence beat stodgy, restrictive, Communist idealism any day, the movie itself is more of a chore than a privilege.
