Unbroken

The Untold Story of Shen Yun

Unbroken: The Untold Story of Shen Yun movingly weaves together several different narratives that somehow make up a compelling whole—in equal parts providing an ode to dancers and performing artists, a tribute to timeless spiritual values, a portrait of a loving family, and a dissection of cleverly planned and executed propaganda.

The New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts company was founded in 2006 by a group of classical Chinese artists whose mission was to revive and share “the traditional, divinely inspired culture of China”—or, as the website tagline says, “China before communism.” Dancers interviewed in Unbroken describe how Shen Yun’s mission and performances deliver hope, make audience members’ “eyes sparkle,” and leave people “in awe.”

Because the company’s source of inspiration is Falun Gong—the Buddhist-inspired spiritual tradition that incorporates meditation and teachings of “truthfulness, compassion, and forebearance” (also called Falun Dafa)—it has earned the ire of China’s top leaders, who don’t like the company’s power to “change hearts and minds” on its annual world tours. A number of the company’s members have either experienced Falun Gong persecution personally or have family members who have been persecuted. And, as Unbroken gradually reveals, China has engaged in significant efforts to destroy the dance company, which include not only relentless anti-Shen Yun propaganda and lawfare, but also tires slashed in such a way as to potentially kill touring performers, bomb threats, and other gruesome warnings.

One of the film’s sobering insights has to do with Chinese intelligence agencies’ success in weaponizing the American legal system and media against the U.S.-based company. It comes as no surprise that one of the “star” agents driving the propaganda war is the New York Times. Illustrating the NYT’s “agenda-setting power”—independent of actual facts on the ground—and its pitiless and biased coverage, the film suggests, “When you get that story wrong, you’re not just wrong, you’re complicit.”

On a more positive note, the film follows Chinese-American brothers Jesse and Lucas Browde and their father, Levi Browde, providing ample footage of the young men’s training and performances. Both boys were so captivated by Shen Yun as young teenagers that they left athletics to study dance at Shen Yun’s incubator Fei Tien Academy of the Arts, saying that they aspire “to touch people’s hearts” the way that the Shen Yun performers first touched theirs. They emphasize that their Fei Tien and Shen Yun dance training has helped them become not just better performers—both are now full-fledged members of the company—but better people.

Watch the movie HERE.