For movie night, try Mao's Last Dancer

While the rest of my family is away at a waterski tournament, I'm going to take a moment to write about a film that really moved me. Mao's Last Dancer is an Australian biographical film from 2009. It's the true story of Li Cunxin, who was plucked as an 11-year-old from Shandong province in China to attend an elite ballet school in Beijing. In the 1960's and '70's, Mao was scouring the nation to find the best talent for nationalist programs to make the Communist regime look good. Children were gathered up and trained for years away from their families.

Directed by Bruce Beresford, the film starts a bit slowly and then hooks you. I rented it to see the dancing, and the technical quality of the dancing in this movie is outstanding. But this inspiring story (superbly acted by folks including Joan Chen and Kyle MacLachlin) how this dancer came to Houston and began to question his future as an artist and a Communist, is what is truly special about this film.

Li, brilliantly skilled in the classic Russian ballet technique, is chosen by the Houston Ballet for a three-month stint in the United States. Immersed in the culture, he wishes to stay longer, and marries an American. When the Chinese officials want him to return, he and Houston Ballet director Ben Stevenson go to the Chinese Consulate to plead his case. There Li is forcibly detained, and it takes high profile, high level negotiations for him to be freed from the consulate. After tense talks, he is released but his Chinese citizenship is revoked and he is banished from ever going to China to see his family. He has nightmares about how cruelly they may be treated because of him.

Even if you don't like ballet, I think you might be impressed with this story and its true history. At the end, he triumphs when China relents after five years and allows Li's folks to go to the U.S., to see him perform. Li is now married to an Australian ballerina with whom he has three children. I actually cried a couple of times during this movie, so unexpectedly. Hope my skiers are cutting it up out there. Peace.