Lots of spoilers!
This is a film that's irritating and rewarding in equal measure.
The first half is fascinating though it is unshaded China bashing, like BALZAC & THE LITTLE SEAMSTRESS, which also puts Western culture against Asian oppression in simplistic terms. Clara Law's REINCARNATION OF GOLDEN LOTUS or FAREWELL CHINA are better, showing imperfect people twisted by the horrors of ideology run amok - more convincing, more involving. The new film's sensibility is of someone with a season ticket to the ballet rather than an Asian heritage. However this is a film which will reach people who would never seek those out.
It certainly has it's moments. The business of the secret Nureyev VHS is great and Chen sending the village officials on their way is worth a cheer. The Madam Mao figure demanding the gypsy-musical ballet be re-figured into a People's Opera is sharper on ballet than anything since the Herman Ross NIJINSKY and carries on through, with the Americans commenting that what they see is more like athletics.
However the thing which should be the heart of the piece, the lead weighing up what he's believed all his life against what he finds in the US, is frustratingly reduced to a few mall bought consumables and a virginal blond.
The film has it's strengths - MacLachlan's performance, the montages, the dream of an execution at dawn are stand outs, some of the ballet material is striking but the big finale with the suspiciously brief performance, followed with the on-stage reunion with the family, again lacks all the culture shock material that the film could have pivoted on and that Asian films that deal with the subject foreground.
This is a film that's irritating and rewarding in equal measure.
The first half is fascinating though it is unshaded China bashing, like BALZAC & THE LITTLE SEAMSTRESS, which also puts Western culture against Asian oppression in simplistic terms. Clara Law's REINCARNATION OF GOLDEN LOTUS or FAREWELL CHINA are better, showing imperfect people twisted by the horrors of ideology run amok - more convincing, more involving. The new film's sensibility is of someone with a season ticket to the ballet rather than an Asian heritage. However this is a film which will reach people who would never seek those out.
It certainly has it's moments. The business of the secret Nureyev VHS is great and Chen sending the village officials on their way is worth a cheer. The Madam Mao figure demanding the gypsy-musical ballet be re-figured into a People's Opera is sharper on ballet than anything since the Herman Ross NIJINSKY and carries on through, with the Americans commenting that what they see is more like athletics.
However the thing which should be the heart of the piece, the lead weighing up what he's believed all his life against what he finds in the US, is frustratingly reduced to a few mall bought consumables and a virginal blond.
The film has it's strengths - MacLachlan's performance, the montages, the dream of an execution at dawn are stand outs, some of the ballet material is striking but the big finale with the suspiciously brief performance, followed with the on-stage reunion with the family, again lacks all the culture shock material that the film could have pivoted on and that Asian films that deal with the subject foreground.