Mao’s Last Dancer

Mao's Last Dancer (2009) is Bruce Beresford's drama about ballet star Li Cunxin, and you can watch it online on iFILM. At eleven, the boy is pulled from a dirt-poor village in Shandong by Madame Mao's cultural scouts and sent to Beijing to train in ballet.

Years of punishing practice later, a short exchange trip to Houston shows him a world he never knew was there — and an American woman, Elizabeth (Amanda Schull), he falls for. The decision to stay in the West turns a quiet performer into the subject of an international standoff, with both governments suddenly involved.

The film comes straight from Li Cunxin's own memoir; he rose to become a principal at the Houston Ballet. Real-life dancer Chi Cao takes the lead, so the stage sequences are danced for the camera rather than faked in the edit — and you can tell. Bruce Greenwood, Kyle MacLachlan and Joan Chen round out the cast. Stream Mao's Last Dancer (2009) online on iFILM.