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Trailer for Mao's Last Dancer - featuring Company Principal Chi Cao
19 August 2009
The trailer for the screen adaptation of Li Cunxin's novel Mao's Last Dancer has been published on-line, giving audiences a first look at the film.
The clip is captioned with a release date of 1 October, which is applicable to Australia, however no date has yet been set for UK release.
Speaking to the BRB Friends last December, Chi said of the filming:
'The first acting experience was terrifying. I thought that I'd have more rehearsal, but the Director said "I don't like to have much rehearsal because you get stale. You're going to have to be fresh!"
'However [the production team] scheduled it really nicely because they know that I'm not an actor, I'm a dancer first of all. They did a lot of the dancing scenes first and kept me in the production office for a long time and just gave me time to get to know everybody who I was working with. So by the time we went to Sydney, where all the big scenes come up, I was beginning to feel comfortable in front of the camera.
'It was hard to go from class and sometimes do my workout in a lunchbreak and then go on set, that was physically really hard. The good thing about performing on a film set is that they can always stop and you can try again, but the bad thing is that you might not have the adrenaline. Sometimes they need to change a camera battery, and that might take ten minutes and you're already pumped and ready to go. But it doesn't work like that!'