Movie Review: "Mao's Last Dancer"

Hm, looks like I'll have to see this flick!

Veteran Australian director Bruce Beresford's new film, "Mao's Last Dancer," feels almost like a remake of the equally heart-warming "Billy Elliot," but this time around, what the aspiring, "Rocky"-like, against-all-odds dancer is escaping is not working-class ignorance and poverty, but hardline Chinese communist officials. 

. . . The film is adapted from the autobiography of Li Cunxin, a peasant child in the wilds of rural China who, at age 11, is plucked out of a one-room schoolhouse to attend Madame Mao's dance school in Beijing. He ends up with the Houston Ballet Company as part of a cultural exchange program, and a few mildly humorous scenes of culture shock follow. Once he has tasted the liberty -- and the good life -- of America, however, the new star doesn't want to return.