Works on many levels, ‘decide for oneself’ __ 7/10
Review by Brian Wright

Summary: A drama based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin. 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.

Rather a surprise movie, a feel-good semidocumentary, like Secretariat. And I expected it to be critiqued accordingly from the majority of the citizen-reviewers on IMDb. Alas, unlike Secretariat, virtually every one of the 40-some reviews of Dancer were almost embarrassingly glowing. The only erudite review I found not climbing on the ‘masterpiece’ bandwagon was from a writer in Vancouver: Continue reading →