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.
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.
Drama + Romance in China
85 China titles in our catalog blend the Drama and Romance genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Mao's Last Dancer itself).
The 2008–2010 China Window
Mao's Last Dancer holds position #34 of 69 China films in the 2008–2010 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2000s China Landscape
2009 was the decade’s peak output year for China — 24 titles released, including Mao's Last Dancer. Bars below show how the 2000s stacked up year by year (142 total).
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 57m runtime, production spent $214K per minute on screen and earned $204K per minute back.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 23 other China films in 2009.
The 209th China title from China we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1935).
Our China catalog contains 946 titles in total (747 films).
Audience Engagement
105 audience reviews — more than 77% of China films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 66th percentile among China films.
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Mao's Last Dancer, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- promise · 5
- ballet · 4
- rags to riches · 3
- ballet dancer · 2
- dance · 11
- communism · 8
- dancer · 7
- village · 46
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 |