Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Mao's Last Dancer

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It is rare for a film to be better than the book it is adapted from, and Mao’s Last Dancer is disappointingly no exception. It is hard to take seriously a film which presents the inner politics of a ballet company as more cutthroat than those of Communist China.

Li Cunxin’s story is an incredible one and hugely worthy, hence the success of his autobiography. Unfortunately director Bruce Beresford isn’t able to convert this story to film in a way that does justice to the extraordinary source material.
Click here to read my full review at Trespass