At the movies
Art house hit Mao's Last Dancer just keeps chugging along
- Chi Cao as Li Cunxin and Camilla Vergotis as Mary McKendry in "Mao's LastDancer"
- Bruce Greenwood, left, as Ben Stevenson and Camilla Vergotis as Mary McKendry.Greenwood steals the movie with his portrayal of Stevenson.
One of the year's biggest art house hits has a lot of Houston ties.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Mao's Last Dancer — the story of Houston Ballet dancer Li Cunxin's defection to the United States in 1981 — has been a surprise smash on the art house circuit, taking in nearly $5 million in the last three months during its U.S. release.
While that is chump change for a Hollywood blockbuster, it's impressive for a small film with no big-name stars, middling reviews and an esoteric subject matter.
While it didn't do well in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, the movie continues to draw audiences in such cities as San Diego, St. Louis, and Houston, where it is still at the Landmark River Oaks Theatre. While most of the film was shot in Australia, much of the film is set in Houston and such locations as Miller Outdoor Theater, the Wortham Theater Center, China Garden restaurant, the Chase building and the Houston Ship Channel are featured.
The movie, which has never played on more than 140 screens nationwide, has nevertheless profited by strong word-of-mouth. Older audiences in particular have embraced the movie, which follows Cunxin from the time he was an 11-year-old boy taken from his rural village to dance for the Beijing Ballet to his stint at the Houston Ballet, where he quickly became a crowd favorite, and his politically-charged defection, which led to a tense standoff at the Chinese consulate on Montrose Boulevard.
"This movie is an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser," Michael McClellan, head buyer for Landmark Theatres told the Times. "And there's always an audience for one of those."