The movie, 'Mao's Last Dancer' filmed a real-life story of Li Cunxin, who entered the Houston Ballet in the USA for the first time as an Asian Dancer and became a legendary ballerino. The movie depicts the successful story of Li Cunxin, who was born as a son of a poor farmer in a Chinese rural village.

Li, selected by Madame Mao's Dance Academy, overcame his adverse conditions such as having flat feet and a weak body compared with his academic friends. In order to have a good command of more beautiful turns and to jump higher, he trained night and day so he could spread his talent as a ballerino gradually.

Later during the course of a cultural visit to China, American ballet director Ben Stevenson invited Li to the Houston Ballet. In America, he received a lot of attention due to his powerful skills and the rich force of his acting. Despite worry from everyone, Li mastered 'Don Quixote' in three hours, and through the perfect performance in front of the couple of Vice President George Bush, he became the best ballet star.

When he was accustomed to living in America, the time had come for him to return his country. He wanted to stay more in America, where he could dance more freely and passionately, but application for extending his stay was rejected, so he had to determine whether to go to his country or not.

The movie concentrates on expressing Li's world of dance. All his career about dance was steady and densely depicted in the movie from the first step to the last one. Following his tracks of dance, which is ballet, means you can see his love and his shaken values between two ideologies.

Li experienced two different countries, America and China, and he felt confusion in his belief. He gradually realized what he wanted and where to go. In that process he grew his passion for ballet and, most importantly, for the freedom. After it all, he concluded his ideal is neither country nor ideology but ballet in his life.

The director attended to how he could make his movie an even better dance movie in quality. He wanted his movie to be one that reflected Li's life perfectly. Bruce Beresford, the director, wanted to cast outstanding dancers for his movie in order to reflect the best ballet performances that had been performed by Li on the screen.

In the movie, the fascinating ballet scenes were performed by actors who were real and high-quality ballet dancers. The famous daily newspaper The Washington Post said that any other movie couldn't have made a better performance than in Mao's Last Dancer, although numerous movies have tried to direct the dance stage with a lot of hard training. You can witness several pleasant ballet performances such as 'Die Fledermaus' of Johann Strauss, 'The Rite of Spring' of Stravinsky, 'Don Quixote' and 'Swan Lake'.

Joo Hyen-Jeong, Korean Language and Literature graduate student