50
Based on the memoirs of Li Cunxin, Mao's Last Dancer means well, but it stumbles between genres.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
The performance sequences feel intimate and exhilarating-but in the end, Li's journey is compelling only when he's onstage.
50
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
A dramatic true story has been made into a diffident biopic.
60
The degree to which they are willing to share their bodies with the world, seeming to reach out for it with each impossible extension, drawing it in with every reeling arabesque, suggests a desire for engagement that is visceral, human, and true in all the ways this film is not.
100
This first-cabin director returns to top form, with this revelatory film his best in years. More than that, Mao's Last Dancer is a masterpiece.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
The delight of this film isn't so much in the tale as the telling.
63
Orlando Sentinel by Roger Moore
Chairman Mao wouldn't necessarily approve. And even today, China won't be showing Mao's Last Dancer.
50
The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson
It's artless, obvious, and at times insultingly exaggerated. And yet the real-life story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin, based on his autobiography, is often dramatic enough to win its way past the silly trappings.