Mao's Last Dancer

The biopic about Chinese defector and onetime ballet dancer Li Cunxin is most powerful during the dance scenes, choppy during other scenes from his life.

There's no shortage of dramatic sweep in the story of Li Cunxin. The peasants' child became an international ballet star, but not before his 1981 defection from China to the United States sparked a diplomatic showdown and front-page headlines. In "Mao's Last Dancer," the film adaptation of his autobiography, that story comes to life only in fits and starts. Director Bruce Beresford ("Driving Miss Daisy") knows how to tug heartstrings but as he moves the inspirational material toward its tear-jerker finale, it's often hampered by awkward melodrama. [...]

di Sheri Linden, articolo completo (1807 caratteri spazi inclusi) su The Los Angeles Times 20 agosto 2010