Immigration Lawyer Is a Hero in 'Mao's Last Dancer' Movie to Open Friday
Taken from his family in China at age 11 to be trained as a ballet dancer, Li Cunxin worked hard and became a star.
In the 1980s, having traveled to Texas, as part of a cultural exchange program, he fell in love and decided to stay in the United States. As Cunxin was hostage at the Chinese embassy in Houston, his immigration lawyer, Charles Foster, was there, too, fighting to help his client remain here.
Now the legal standoff is the centerpiece of a new movie, Mao’s Last Dancer, which is to open tomorrow in a number of U.S. cities, reports KVUE. Foster is played by Kyle MacLachlan.
Despite the presence of federal agents and Chinese embassy officials, another authority represented a greater risk as he worked to get his client released, Foster tells the station—a federal judge.
“That was the most dangerous thing I did all evening, waking up a federal judge in the middle of the night,” he recounts.
A review in the Wall Street Journal describes the movie as “flawed but pleasurable.”
A Li Cunxin website provides additional details.
Updated at 11:23 p.m. to include Wall Street Journal review.
