-
Chi Cao
as Li Cunxin (adult) -
Chengwu Guo
as Li Cunxin (teenage) -
Huang Wen Bin
as Li Cunxin (boy) -
Joan Chen
as Niang -
Wang Shuang Bao
as Dia -
Bruce Greenwood
as Ben Stevenson -
Amanda Schull
as Elizabeth -
Kyle Maclachlan
as Charles Foster -
Jack Thompson
as Judge Woodrow Seals -
Camilla Vergotis
as Mary McKendry -
Madeleine Eastoe
as Lori -
Steven Heathcote
as Bobby Cordner -
Aden Young
as Dilworth
In a life that shares resemblances with Li Cunxin, whose autobiography inspired the film MAO’S LAST DANCER, Joan Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing, as she excelled at marksmanship, and was selected to study acting. She trained at the Shanghai Film Academy and then studied at the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages before moving to the United States to further her studies in 1981.
Joan’s role in The Little Flower, directed by veteran Chinese director Jin Xie, won her China’s Best Actress Award. After moving to the US, she was cast by Dino De Laurentiis in Tai-Pan and went on to performances in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor and David Lynch’s cult TV series Twin Peaks. Joan’s career has continued to straddle China and the United States and she is feted in both countries, as well as in Australia, where she won an AFI Award for Best Lead Actress in Home Song Stories. Joan also received an Asian Film Award nomination for the role and won the Asian Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the Chinese film The Sun Also Rises. Her many other films include Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Clara Law’s Temptation of a Monk, Oliver Stone’s Heaven & Earth and Stanley Kwan’s Red Rose, White Rose.
Joan is also a noted director. Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl was adapted from the novella Heavenly Bath by her friend Yan Geling and she also directed Autumn in New York.
