China Synopsis
“Before you can fly, you have to be free.”
At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he fell in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
The 2008–2010 China Window
69 China films released in this three-year window, ranked here by audience rating. Mao's Last Dancer sits at position #34.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Mao's Last Dancer. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
The 2000s China Landscape
Catalog density by release year in the 2000s. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Mao's Last Dancer premiered. 142 total titles in this decade from China.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 57m runtime, production spent $214K per minute on screen and earned $204K per minute back.
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #513 of 946 China films indexed here (46th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Among China Drama productions specifically: #325 of 547 (top 59%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | China |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | Australia, China |
| Original Language | En |
| Spoken Languages | Mandarin, English |
| Production Companies | Great Scott Productions Pty. Ltd. |
| Runtime | 1h 57m |
| Release Date | October 1, 2009 |
| IMDb | tt1071812 |