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Mao’s Last Dancer

Mao’s Last Dancer

Before you can fly, you have to be free.

6.59 - voted by 122
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.

Cast

Amanda Schull poster

Amanda Schull

Elizabeth Mackey

Chi Cao poster

Chi Cao

Li Cunxin - adult

Chengwu Guo poster

Chengwu Guo

Li Cunxin - teenage

Wen Bin Huang poster

Wen Bin Huang

Li Cunxin - boy

Joan Chen poster

Joan Chen

Niang

Bruce Greenwood poster

Bruce Greenwood

Ben Stevenson

Kyle MacLachlan poster

Kyle MacLachlan

Charles Foster

Jack Thompson poster

Jack Thompson

US Federal Judge

Camilla Vergotis poster

Camilla Vergotis

Mary McKendry

Madeleine Eastoe poster

Madeleine Eastoe

Lori

Steven Heathcote poster

Steven Heathcote

Bobby Cordner

Aden Young poster

Aden Young

Dilworth

Wang Shuangbao poster

Wang Shuangbao

Barbara Bush poster

Barbara Bush

Herself (archive footage) (uncredited)

George H. W. Bush poster

George H. W. Bush

Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)