請看電影《毛主席的最後一位舞者》 (part B)
毛的最後一位舞者
編劇 : Jan Sardi
毛主席的最後一位舞者圖片
導演 : Bruce Beresford
主演 : 曹馳 /Amanda Schull/ 陳沖 /Bruce Greenwood/Kyle MacLachlan/Suzie Steen 製片國家 / 地區 : 澳大利亞
劇情介紹 : 一個中國北方農村貧苦人家的 11 歲男孩，
很不錯，真實的故事。抓緊時間看 。
Mao’s Last Dancer
Mao’s Last Dancer , published in 2003 by Penguin, is not another sensational book, as the title may mistakenly suggest, that pries into the private life of China’s late Chairman. It is, however, a touching memoir written by Li Cunxin, a ballet dancer, who was born in 1961 in a poverty-stricken village near Qingdao, so poor in fact that the half-starved village folks lived on dried yams all the year around and children wore their winter jackets without underwear. At the age of eleven, by a sheer stroke of luck, the peasant boy was singled out to train in a ballet school in Beijing which was under the direct supervision of Madam Mao. It was there for the next seven years that Li received the most demanding and rigorous training ever under very harsh conditions but ended up a top-notch ballet dancer.
In 1979, through an exchange program, Li was able to dance in the Houston Ballet for over a year. His contact with the West not only broadened his artistic vision, but also brought about a change in his concept of a country with dazzling wealth, spectacular skylines, and unlimited opportunities, contrary to the political indoctrination he had been previously subjected to in Mao’s era. However, the day before his scheduled return to China, Li secretly married a fellow dancer in an attempt to justify his continued stay in the U.S. He was nevertheless forcibly detained in the Chinese Consulate in Houston. Thanks to the miraculous rescue efforts made by his friends, he was released. Thereafter his career as a principal dancer took a leap. He won medals at three international competitions and rose to stardom overnight. But his personal success came the hard way, at the expense of the four Vice Ministers of Culture in China who had approved his exit, the professors in the ballet school who had assiduously lobbied for him, and above all, his parents and six brothers who saw him as the only hope out of dire poverty. Therefore, Li suffered gnawing pain in his heart and guilt in his conscience daily. Five years later, through the intervention of the then Vice President George Bush and his wife Barbara Bush who was a personal friend of Li, his beloved parents were able to reunite with him in Houston and on the night of their arrival saw their son dance on stage. In 1988, Li was allowed to visit his native country not as a former infamous defector, but as a talented actor.
Today, at the age of forty-seven, Li is retired from the Australian Ballet and works as a senior manager in one of the largest stockbroker firms in the world. He makes his home in Melbourne and is happily re-married to a ballerina with a brood of three Eurasian children.
The most touching part of the book is the author’s strong love for his mother. The thread of love runs throughout the book. For the first two years in the ballet school, the young boy battled homesickness every night and clinging to the quilt his mother hade made for him sobbed himself to sleep. Li’s father sacrificed his “tobacco money” so that his son might have a little more allowance at his disposal. In face of difficulties and obstacles, Li kept on with determination, resilience, and perseverance; his mother’s words always ringing in his ears: “Never look back.”
The book is written in simple, straightforward English, without the need on the part of the reader to struggle for the meanings of hard and obscure words; and once you get started, you will breeze through the entire book and will sigh, weep, laugh, and rejoice with the author as his entertaining and moving story unfolds.
The review is, however, not complete without the mention of a great Russian ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev who, when asked if he was a man without a country, replied: “A country is where I can dance.”
Reviewed by Benjamin Chang, ‘61 Sr.
In San Francisco, 2008
