55
Metascore
23 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenThe delight of this film isn't so much in the tale as the telling.
- 70VarietyVarietyThe story lights up when world-class performer Chi Cao leaps about as the adult Li, but is marred by lumpy melodrama when the music stops.
- 63Orlando SentinelRoger MooreOrlando SentinelRoger MooreChairman Mao wouldn't necessarily approve. And even today, China won't be showing Mao's Last Dancer.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterLike most films in this underdog genre, the emotional manipulation of the audience is constant and obvious.
- 60MovielineMichelle OrangeMovielineMichelle OrangeThe degree to which they are willing to share their bodies with the world, seeming to reach out for it with each impossible extension, drawing it in with every reeling arabesque, suggests a desire for engagement that is visceral, human, and true in all the ways this film is not.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceBased on the memoirs of Li Cunxin, Mao's Last Dancer means well, but it stumbles between genres.
- 50Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsA dramatic true story has been made into a diffident biopic.
- 50The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonThe A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonIt's artless, obvious, and at times insultingly exaggerated. And yet the real-life story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin, based on his autobiography, is often dramatic enough to win its way past the silly trappings.
- 40Time OutEric HynesTime OutEric HynesThe performance sequences feel intimate and exhilarating-but in the end, Li's journey is compelling only when he's onstage.