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"Are you carrying any plants or animals or drugs or firearms?" the U.S. Customs officers ask. The problem -- here -- is getting in.
"Are there any family members in the last three generations that you'd consider class enemies?" the officials ask in China. The problem -- there -- is getting out.
Li Cunxin steps gracefully through the minefields of both worlds in "Mao's Last Dancer," the true tale of a Chinese peasant boy's cross-cultural journey from Red rags to Yankee riches, and international stardom beyond.
- Starring: Chi Cao, Bruce Greenwood, Kyle MacLachlan.
- Rating: PG for a brief violent image, some sensuality and language.
Australian director Bruce Beresford ("Tender Mercies," "Driving Miss Daisy") opens his film -- based on the dancer's autobiography -- in 1981, with his nervous arrival and big "Texas welcome!" in the States. A cultural exchange agreement had allowed him to spend a year at the Houston Ballet, and we are treated to glimpses of his introduction to the land of Gershwin, kitchen blenders and ATM machines.
How, exactly, did he get there?
Flashback to 1972 and agrarian Shandong Province, where the Fab Five (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao) stare down at students, inspirationally, from every classroom wall. Li, in those days, is just the toothpick-skinny "Sixth Brother" -- he hardly even has a name -- plucked from his home by the government and assigned to undergo grueling ballet training in Beijing.
"I don't like ballet," the boy moans. "I don't understand it!"
He understands it even less with the ascension of Chairman Mao Zedong's fanatic wife, Jiang Qing (a former B-film actress), to head the Cultural Revolution, whereby true classical dance was replaced by proletarian pageants with catchy titles like "The Women's Detachment of the Red Guards Heroically Defends the Homeland."
But he's awfully good at it.
When the chance for a trip to America comes along, his instructions are clear: "Don't trust anyone. When in doubt, let your Communist principles guide you." China, he has been taught, has the highest living standard in the world. Conditions in America? "Unimaginable."
True enough. In Houston, Li settles into a lifestyle he never knew existed, under the aegis of the dance company's artistic director-choreographer Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood). It was Stevenson's coup to capture this rare Asian bird in mid-flight. But inevitably, the bird is inclined to escape his American cage, as well. Something about that freedom stuff -- and those American girls -- is highly contagious.
In China, just watching a Baryshnikov videotape is a dangerous underground activity. In America, the threat of defection is Red Chinese officialdom's greatest nightmare. The resulting diplomatic drama culminates in a tense hostage crisis at the consulate's office that reaches even Ronald Reagan's White House.
It takes a trio, if not quite a village, to play Li -- as boy, teen and adult. Best of the three, in some respects, is soulful young Chengwu Guo (from the Australian Ballet) as Li the teenager in Beijing. But the star is Chi Cao, a principal dancer of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, as Li the adult. His dancing is terrific, even if his acting is wooden and his stilted pidgin English kicks in and out of effectiveness.
Amanda Schull (from the San Francisco Ballet) is Elizabeth, the winsome love interest -- who may or may not become Li's wife. The low-key Mr. Greenwood ("Dinner for Schmucks") is nicely sardonic. Kyle MacLachlan ("Sex in the City") has a brief turn as an attorney-to-the-rescue. Spunky veteran Joan Chen ("The Last Emperor") is powerful as Li's mother.
Trouble is, the story is stocked with stock characters -- a virtual cultural exchange program of stereotypes -- from the ballet mavens through the dance and political officials on both sides. Chinese dancers have "amazing technique but no emotion," says an American. "Big-nosed foreigners all look alike," says a Shandong villager. And watch out for the most ludicrous middle-class domestic "conflict" between Li and Liz -- an argument over her leaving dirty dishes in the kitchen sink!
Mr. Bereford's "Last Dancer" is s part biopic, part chick flick, part political melodrama, with an excess of sentimentality and no real cutting edge. It's quite suitable (and instructive) for kids, if you're in need of a good family night out at the movies with a true story. Who isn't?
Neither Mao nor Jiang Qing would be amused, either by the film or by its best throwaway line: During the embassy standoff, one of the Texans remarks that his aunt has a cat named Chairman Meow.
Opens today at the Manor Theater in Squirrel Hill.
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