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Mao’s Last Dancer poster

Mao’s Last Dancer (2009)

Before you can fly, you have to be free.

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.

Release: 2009-10-01
Runtime: 117 min
Rating: 6.555 / 10
Cast
Amanda Schull
Amanda Schull
Elizabeth Mackey
Chi Cao
Chi Cao
Li Cunxin - adult
No Image
Chengwu Guo
Li Cunxin - teenage
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Wen Bin Huang
Li Cunxin - boy
Joan Chen
Joan Chen
Niang
Bruce Greenwood
Bruce Greenwood
Ben Stevenson
Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan
Charles Foster
Jack Thompson
Jack Thompson
US Federal Judge
No Image
Camilla Vergotis
Mary McKendry
No Image
Madeleine Eastoe
Lori
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Steven Heathcote
Bobby Cordner
Aden Young
Aden Young
Dilworth
Wang Shuangbao
Wang Shuangbao
Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush
Herself (archive footage) (uncredited)
George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)
Bruce Greenwood
Bruce Greenwood
Kip Gamblin
Kip Gamblin
David