Mao’s Last Dancer

“Before you can fly, you have to be free.”

Li Cunxin (Chi Cao) wants what the other boys from his poor Chinese village never get, a way out, and at eleven he is taken to Beijing to train as a ballet dancer. In 1979 a cultural exchange brings him to Texas, where Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood) watches him work and Elizabeth Mackey (Amanda Schull) catches his eye. Bruce Beresford returns to the village and his mother Niang (Joan Chen) as the memory Li carries onto every stage.