Mao's Last Dancer

[abcdefg]

I saw “Mao’s Last Dancer” a few days ago. The movie has been out the better part of a year, but it just now made it to my neck of the (Texas) woods.

It’s directed by Australian Bruce Beresford, who has a long string of excellent, uncompromising films under his belt. There’s a sprinkling of Mandarin throughout which might tickle the ears of language learners.

It starts as a youngster of 11 is selected from his Shandong village by cultural deputies from the central government in the early 1970’s. He receives arduous training in Beijing and eventually goes on tour to the U.S. (Houston) where most of the film takes place.

Don’t want to give away any spoilers, but would definitely recommend it as entertaining, even if not politically profound. Not sure if it’s available in China.

[Meng Lelan]

It's available in book form as an autobiography. Not planning to see the movie though as I tend to gravitate toward the gory kungfu flicks.

He has a deaf daughter, by the way, who eventually learned Chinese as a foreign language in Australia.

[abcdefg]

It's available in book form as an autobiography. Not planning to see the movie though as I tend to gravitate toward the gory kungfu flicks.

I also like those bloody kungfu flicks, but wanted to see this on the screen because I was living in Houston at the time "the incident" took place and was curious to see how it was portrayed.

[Meng Lelan]

Oh, yes, ah, the "incident", 明白了。