Mao's Last Dancer

"It's artless, obvious, and at times insultingly exaggerated."

"The film celebrates artistic freedom without preaching a sermon, and often flies when Mr. Chi is on screen."

"Strenuously brainless."

"Many films have portrayed the rigours of ballet training, but none will make viewers wince quite like Mao's Last Dancer."

"Recounts the true story of Chinese ballet star Li Cunxin's defection to the US in the schmaltziest TV-movie terms imaginable."

"Ballet star Li Cunxin's best-selling autobiography gets a curiously tepid treatment."

"Bruce Beresford can’t even represent Li’s dancing with a modicum of dynamism."

"Leaning heavily on rural childhood flashbacks and boot camp-like training as a teenager in Beijing, the story lights up when world-class performer Chi Cao leaps about as the adult Li, but is marred by lumpy melodrama when the music stops."

"Told in flashback and starting with Cunxin's youth, it shows the horrors of living under the Mao regime in China. Li's plucked from a poor school and thrust into a dance academy where he trains as an apprentice."

"Beresford hasn't usually allowed himself to become this corny. This new film appears calculated to do two things: make everyone cry and maximise its appeal to those red-blooded, childlike Americans who think "freedom" is a US concept."

"It's something of an irony that this film should be as wooden, formulaic and literal-minded as the improving Communist entertainment that, at one point, it implicitly criticises."

"Feel-good movie about a Chinese dancer presses all the right buttons."