The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Dancing Through the Shadow by Agnes Bristow

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Dancing Through the Shadow by Agnes Bristow https://www.amazon.com/dp/106889430X Dancingthroughtheshadow.com The shocking true story of Communist China- and the woman it couldn't contain.As the Cultural Revolution sweeps across the nation, young ballerina Tia Zhang rises to the top of Mao Zedong's favorite dancers. Her success leads her to a forbidden love with a dashing military athlete - but it can not protect them from the brutality of the Communist regime.In a story that spans nearly half a century, Tia's family life is upended when her new husband is sent away to a labor camp, their baby son is taken from her, and her career as a dance teacher - her last hope of autonomy - is constantly threatened by government control.Yet, amid despair, Tia's unyielding spirit and love for her family illuminate the darkest corners of a country in turmoil - and fuels her inspiring bid for freedom.Dancing Through the Shadow is a testament to the enduring power of the human spirit and the fierceness of a mother's love. Set against the backdrop of one of politics's most repressive regimes, Agnes Bristow's vivid prose captures the heartache and triumph of a woman who danced not just for art - but for her very survival.

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but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we have an amazing young man on the show where we're talking about his book and film and his work with him and his wife. The book is entitled, Dancing Through the Shadow, out May 21st, 2025 by Agnes Bristow. And we're going to be talking with Leif Bristow and the film that has now developed out of the book. So we're going to get in all the details on that, or as the deets the kids say. I don't even know what the kids say anymore.

Leif Bristow is a award-winning director, producer, and screenwriter best known for his Hallmark Channel hits and internationally recognized films over his career. He's produced and directed more than 40 films, 18 for HBO. collectively earning six Emmys and 200 international awards. His projects include Love on the Safari. I think that's a story of biography of me. No, I'm just kidding. I don't have that much love.

A tale of love, Blizzard, and the Christmas Chocolatier. Now I'm hungry. He's helped propel Hallmark to number one network status during peak seasons. He's filmed in Canada, Ireland, Malta, South Africa, Ireland, and Belgium, and a celebrator for creating uplifting, emotionally resonant stories with global appeal. His latest work is the film adaptation of Dancing Through the Shadow. Welcome to the show, Leif. How are you? I'm absolutely wonderful.

Thank you. Happy to be here. We're happy to have you. Give us any dot-coms. Where do you want people to look you up on the interwebs? Well, probably the easiest place people find me is on IMDB. Like a lot of people in the industry, that's, that's. the most common place to find us and oddly enough with a name like leaf you know when people

google me it's not too hard to find me so you're the guy i got to blame when all my girlfriends are crying in front of the tv watching the hallmark channel is that you that that caused that it's certainly we could certainly be um part of the problem that you know it's and it's it's amazing um how you know especially when you know as we watch the world's in a pretty precarious and challenging place at the moment. And the mother, you sure? You know, there's days I wonder. What's going on?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm totally babbled by what's going on. But it's, you know, it's amazing how much we lean into those things that just make us feel good. And I'm always amazed by how many men tell me, well, you know, I actually watch the movies with my wife, too. So you kind of have to, actually. I think it's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, it could well be. But, you know, you think about it when you, you know, no, I know it's, it's a lot of fun.

I guess what it, you know, what it is for me in when I, when I moved back to Toronto, I was living in L.A. I had performed in Europe. I was living in L.A. I was an actor. I was fortunate. I did well. But when I moved back to Canada, after Walt Disney died, I thought, you know, nobody is making the kinds of movies that Walt Disney made early in his career. And I wonder why.

And so I developed a company specifically to focus on positive family-oriented stories. And that's basically been my career since 1993. And it's been fascinating. It's, it makes for a wonderful journey. The Hallmark movies that my wife and I do in particular, we, some people kind of credit us with creating exotic locations for Hallmark. And what we did when Hallmark asked if we would make movies, I said, well, you know, the most powerful. romance movies in history that really propelled the industry

were made with people like Audrey Hepburn and Gina Lola Brigida and Sophia Oren. So we said if we can do those and make the locations a major character in our movies, then we're all in. And you know, you mentioned Love on Safari. You know, being able to take the

audience on a romantic adventure where half of the set is we're out on safari with lions walking through the set or a giraffe, It's just a visual stimulation that the audience doesn't get to see very often. And we still have to remember that it doesn't really matter what country you're in. The U.S. is more affluent than a lot. But a minimum of 85% of the population will never leave the borders of their own country in their lifetime.

Yeah. So, you know, it's the opportunity to explore when we do a Christmas movie in Vienna or, you know, last year we charted a river cruise ship on the Danube. when we filmed three love stories following three couples as they fall in love as they go on a river cruise down the danube so we filmed in the movies well the only way you can do that is is this way so it's it's really been part of the signature of what we do we always like to try to make people laugh and cry all in the same movie i've i've come home sometimes to a girlfriend and her mother and they pulled the autumn and part of the couch right up to the tv and i'll walk in the door i'll never forget it was i could have filmed it but i never forget it And the both of them, and they're a little feet from this giant TV watching, I think it was the hallmark of life, doing one of those movies from you guys' programs. And I don't know if it's yours,

but, but, but, you know, I'll walk in, I turn to them, or they look at me, and they turn around,

and they're both just crying, incessantly, and, you know, and they, I think one time they said, men suck! And I just turn around and left and went to dinner somewhere.

I wasn't going to stick around from that. Well, last year, actually, our daughter, Brittany, who stars in a lot of Hallmark movies and other movies. Also, she wrote a movie called Love on the Right Course, which was about golf. And actually, that movie has actually done quite well for Hallmark in the spring. They played during, you know, during golf season. And people say, well, gee, that was one, you know, it was easier for me to get my husband to watch that one with me because it was about golf, even though there was a lot of romance, but not a lot of golf. Yeah, that's good in both sides of the spectrum there, eh? Getting everybody involved in the thing.

So let's get into it with the, tell us about this book and the story that lies in the side. Okay, yeah, the book's dancing through the shadow. There's a pretty picture of it. I love the cover, and that actually is Teja Zhang, the heroine in the book. It's such an amazing story, her life. Tia grew up and came of age in China under Mao's reign. Her father was one of the most senior military people in China and was part of the group that ended up surrendering Beijing to Mao. I mean, a surrender was, you know, Mao kind of came into a hero's welcome when they finally got to Beijing.

And when, when what happened during Mao's reign and at that time, when he took over, Over, the members of the Kuomintang, which were the military and the leaders of China at that time, were afforded an opportunity to leave. They basically had a day where they could go to a ship, and when they got to that ship, it took them to Taiwan. The current government of Taiwan is that former Qumintang government that ran China prior to Mao. So when they got, they had to go by cart because they had to give up all their possessions. and when they got to where the ship was to take off, they had to get into a small boat to go out to the ship. And when they got there, soldiers said they recognized her father.

Well, they started shooting machine gun fire into the air. And as they were going out to get into the boat, her younger brother, who I think was six at the time or nine, she was only 10, I believe, 11. And one of the bullets came down and hit her brother's leg. So they ran back to shore because he was bleeding and mother refused to get into the boat because she had to deal with brother. And so the boat left. So they were stranded in China.

Wow. So on their return to what they had a home that was preserved by the government to show what some of the opulent homes of that time were. because he was one of the highest military officers in China at the time, they had a massive home with servants and everything else. And when they returned to the home, it was basically filled with other people. And so they were given a small portion to live in. Her father was sent to be an administrator in a hospital five hours from Beijing. And because of the way things worked in each of your groups, you're run by, by your group. To leave the area, you have to get permission from the group. So he was only permitted

to come home twice a year. And so then Tia's mother, because they also, they no longer had the money they and wealth they had before. Her mother worked in a dress factory, sewing dresses, and at a certain point when they had dances at the factory. So Tia got to go, well, at a certain point, there was a woman by the name of Betty Oliphant from Canada, who was invited to come and set up China's first ballet studio of European and the ballet that we in North America know, as opposed to traditional Chinese ballet. And so Betty Oliphant went over to launch the school, and Tia wanted to audition, and she became known as the jumper. And she's a very, very strong-willed human being. So she went in to do the audition. Betty Oliphon asked them all to raise the back of their top so she could see their backs.

Tia refused because it would be improper for her to show her back. But Betty Oliphant chose her to be in the school. So she actually was in the very first graduating class of the Beijing Dance Academy. It's the same one. I don't know if you recall, there was a movie a number of years ago called Mao's Last dancer. It won an Oscar. The dancer in that was chosen by Tia to go to school there, and he graduated 10 years after she did. So what the family endured during that period, while Tia was there, she went through the complete change of Mao's upheaval in the country

with the Chinese Red Guard and all of these things. And there came a point in Tia's life while she was at the school. And it was always thought that she would go on and be the principal ballerina. She was considered the greatest traditional Chinese dancer ever. And when she was when, at a certain point, when the Red Guard came into power, they just brutalized everything. And, you know, teachers were taken out in front of the school and beaten because the students were now in control.

You know, Tia was told, because she was an, an, assistant at the school at the time not to look the students in the eye by the students because she was mean I think I remember this story of the students beating the yeah oh yeah it was it was it was brutal I mean there and this is where you know mal created mass confusion because he was he was falling out of favor and to gain control of the country again he did and I'm and I'm going to say it he pulled to Donald Trump he worked it he worked at unleashing the youth of society against everyone else, saying it was the youth that was going to change China. The intellects in the country were the problem, that what they needed to do was to burn all the

books, that the press was the enemy of the people. Therefore, they needed to get rid of the press because it was all reporting fake news. So that needed to disappear. The students were the ones that should be in control and that the workers were the ones that were in the worst shape because the intellects were trying to control the country. So he started weeding out all of the intellectuals and placing them into labor camps and things like that, which is what many of his campaigns were about. And so at a certain point then, Matt and Mao decided they were having a fight with Russia because Russia was supposed to provide them food in exchange for iron ore and China really in all of the years of the cultural revolution they never produced enough

iron ore to build a bridge I don't think so so that then they got into a fight with with Russia and everything came to a stalemate and the people were starving there was you know it's estimated that between 35 and 70 million people died under Mao's reign and many of that through starvation in the western provinces because the farm fields all of the men had been recruited to work on the iron to try to get iron ore and to work in the factories and the women and the children and the older men were left in the villages and they had massive rains and the the track some of like the tractors were just stuck in the mud no one could get them or use them so all the crops rotted and the people were starving to death and so what tia witnessed in the city because of the the famines

and the starvation was horrific. And then she met a young man, and this is what really, I mean, the book, the book is a wonderful love story. What Agnes was able to do by spending a couple of years really talking to Tia in detail was to understand how to tell the story through Tia's eyes, which is what's so important about this story. And understanding the level of adversity that she was faced and what she did to overcome it. She, at a certain point, Tia was asked to model for a statue.

When the CCP came to power, they decided they were going to make statues of the most beautiful faces of the new China. So Tia was sent to model for a statue that is still at Worker Stadium in Beijing. Oh, wow. And the man that she was standing next to happened to be someone from the Chinese athletic team. He was a hurdler. And he was standing next to her, and they weren't really allowed to speak. They just stood there unmodeled for days while the sculptor worked on everything. And he was very nice, and she fell in love with him.

Oh, wow. Love story. Yeah. And that's really what this book is and the movie. It's a very, very powerful love story. It's not so much a story of China and the Cultural Revolution, but it's set against that backdrop, because you can't tell her story without showing that backdrop. And so she went home and told her mother about this man,

and that didn't go over so well. But she tried to see Jason, and her mother said she refused because her mother was determined that as a proper Chinese mother and her daughter, she would arrange a marriage for her. Tia wanted nothing to do with the men that she picked. She said that she had met Jason, and then after the modeling of the statue,

she convinced her mother to go to a screening of a ballet at a theater to commemorate the new statue. And Jason was there, and so mother met him. And when she got home, she said she wouldn't permit it because Jason was too tall. And he wasn't educated at the level that she wanted because he was on the athletic team. so about a year went by and Jason was away and hadn't received Tia's notes and a certain point Tia was beginning to think maybe she wasn't going to see him again and then he showed up at her door not realizing the note that she that she had given him was in a pocket in a jacket but he had been

sent away to train and the jacket was in a different place to have no contact. Wow. So he came back, he found it, and he came to her home. And so mother allowed them to visit. But then when she said she wanted to marry Jason, she absolutely forbid it. And there was a whole period of time, months went by where they did not speak. She basically, there's a scene in the movie, as talked about in the book, but there's a scene in the movie that is unbelievably powerful. and every one of my actors who in that scene who are all Chinese and are in a somewhere South Korean but they're all Asian actors and every one of them said they've experienced this exact same conversation in their home my lead actress had just undergone the same thing where

mother basically said you will do what I say or you're dead to me and you will no longer be part of this family wow I get that weekly from my mom so Tia said there is no way she was going to give up on Jason and so she left and went back to the ballet school and her sister came and you know she said you know the family's miserable because Tia won't give him up she said I won't give him up so finally mother said okay come here and bring Jason so she went brought Jason and mother said okay I have reconsidered and I'm willing to permit you to see Jason on the condition did he go to university and what what jason said was well i'm very excited because i've suffered a number of injuries

and i've already enrolled in the basing school of medicine at the university so it's going to be a doctor man yeah let the guy be a doctor yeah so mother and and and and and and nai the grandmother uh were both were very excited and so mother gave her blessing so that ended up good nice that was really wonderful. Yeah. So Jason was then at school and Tia was teaching at the at the ballet school. And Jason, while he was completing his schooling, because he was the head of his group of students. So as the leader of his group of students, he asked a question of the superior about why they weren't allowed to do something or whatever. A note of that was put in Jason's file. So on the basically the day, or immediately following his graduation from university, as a doctor of Chinese medicine, he was notified that he would be being sent to a labor camp to reconsider his thinking.

To reconsider his thinking. You need to reconsider your thinking. Well, it's the same thing that Mao did with all the intellectuals. in China. He sent them to labor camps to get rid of them so that the country was being run by people without education that he could control. And so in the labor camp he was sent to, most people never returned from. It was very close to the Russian border, freezing in winter. They didn't have proper heat. Your bed would be, you would dig a hole below your reed mattress and you would put embers of coal in that hole, and that's what would lift heat up.

So think about your breathing coal dust all night long. Oh, that's going to be good for lungs. Yeah, life expectancy was not great. So then at some point, Tia asked if she could go and visit, and he was given permission for her to come. He was treated a little bit better than some people because he was also the doctor. He was a doctor. So he was providing medical help to people in the labor camp.

So he was treated a little bit better. And he was given permission for Tia to come and visit. So she had to take like an 18-hour train ride to the north just to visit him. And while she was there, she became pregnant. Because they actually, they got married. When he was being notified that he would be sent away, they got married even without the blessing of the government. nine they they had a quick wedding knowing that and knowing that she might never see him again they got married anyway yeah yeah yeah and the enduring thing of humanity yeah so he then

so he's up to labor camp she goes up and she comes back and she finds out that she's pregnant so during that period and just before she was to give birth she gets a letter saying that the school is being shut down. Madam Mao decided that ballerinas didn't understand what hard work was like. She closed the dance schools and determined that she would send all the ballerinas to labor camp

so they could learn to work alongside the peasants and understand what hard work was all about. So when, and the problem was she couldn't take the baby. And so

56 days after her son was born she had to give up her baby and then go to a labor camp wow that is amazing and she was only able to see her son a couple of times in three years across 18 years of his life or the next three years the next three years after that yeah for the first three years of his life she only saw him a couple of times so he was being raised by his mother and his her mother and so his grandmother and his great-grandmother were the ones raising him. And sometimes he would get to go to Jason's family. So we want people to go read the story so they can find out.

I think we've got that teased down enough. How is this moving with getting into the book, into the movie and stuff like that? Tell us a little bit with that process. Well, you know, it was such a powerful book. And, you know, I mean, I can remember sitting there reading the book. And I read a lot of scripts. I don't read a lot of manuscripts. Because, well, I read about 300 feature film and television movie scripts a year based on what's submitted to me for directing, producing, and financing.

And I love reading a good script because then it allows my mind to paint all the pictures of what it's supposed to look like. With a book, quite often the authors paint all the pictures. So I find it really hard to read books because I'm one that wants to paint the picture. But I sat and I read this book in one sitting. And there were so many times where it just brought me to tears, realizing how powerful the story was and just recognizing and the empathy and feeling of what was going on. You're drawn into the book in a way that is just magical. So out of that, we said, okay, the book is one thing, but as a filmmaker, how do we tell a story that is not, you know, most movies that are made in China never make it out. of China. And they're all propaganda movies anyway, because everything has to be approved.

Every page has to be approved by the Chinese government before you film it. With something like this, I knew that, you know, the only things that North Americans and most of the world has ever seen from China are sitcoms or, you know, Jackie Chan movies or things like that. But for when you consider, there's over 50 million people in North America of Asian ancestry. It's a big part of our combined demographic in Canada and the United States. Yet, as neighbors to this part of our society, we know very little about China. We know very little about our Chinese friends. We don't necessarily understand the customs other than going to a Chinese restaurant.

So what was powerful about this was it wasn't a sitcom. This is modern history of China that by telling one woman's story, this is not just Tia's story. I mean, it is Tia's story, but many millions of Chinese people went through this same history. And their children are alive and living in North America. So this is many, many people's story that they can relate to. And I think it's a, I wanted to be able to make a movie. I wish, like many movies, there's no way you can do complete justice to the book. To do that, I would have had to do about an eight-hour movie or a six-part miniseries.

But what's powerful about the movie is it really, it gives, it was really the opportunity to create a visual experience that people could gain a better understanding. And maybe that would cause them to go read the book or the book will cause them to watch the movie. but it's a it's a real opportunity for us to learn and and see a part of history that isn't that far in the past and how it's so easy to be destined to repeat the same history yeah the one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history isn't that the truth thereby we go around and around I mean if you if you studied history and and and how things roll you understand what's going on 2025 and you're horrified yeah at least if you live in america uh so 20 25 people if you're

watching this uh 10 years from now on youtube assuming it still exists and everything else does exist so yeah yeah it's amazing people always bug us on youtube because we've been on there for like 20 years or something in there like yeah you're still writing about the iPhone two and you're like that was that was in like 2005 or something what do you what do you do that is amazing Don't write me either. We used to put prices on reviews, and then two years later, they would write, it's $9.99 on Amazon, and you're like, do you look at the dates on the videos? And so, you know, that's why I always give the date, because that's incredible.

Yeah, I mean, to think that we're in 2025 and we are where we are is pretty amazing. But, yeah, you know, there's, there's, there's just, there's such amazing and wonderful performances in the film. and it's I would encourage anyone to get the book because they can do that really fast on Amazon it's right there we've been very fortunate

it's been in the best sellers list for over a couple of months now so we're really thankful for that MGM is distributing the film for us now worldwide and I'm just not quite sure which network in the U.S. has recently picked it up

but I will be finding out pretty soon is it in so has it been released yet then? Yeah, the film has been released. Mostly we released it in in film festivals and then a small theatrical release in Canada. And then the MGM picked it up to distribute worldwide. So it'll primarily, I'm hoping that what they do is doing like an Amazon premiere with it, since MGM is now owned by Amazon. That's that's my hope that we see it there. Because the real goal with the book and the film, more so, you know, there's, the wonderful ego as a filmmaker, you know, as a director of saying, gee, I'd love to see it

in a thousand cinemas. But the real truth is, that's not how we watch motion pictures anymore in this world. You know, we watch, we watch Marvel movies and big Disney, you know, mega, mega pictures in the movie theater. But the real truth is, you know, 90% of all the content we watch, we watch via a streamer anyway. So I would rather that it's seen by, people all over the world as much as possible because it's also an incredible education to helping people understand what is something about the Chinese community, understanding recent Chinese history. This will give you a better understanding of who China is today, just by understanding more about those people who are our neighbors in society than we currently do. If it causes

us to ask questions or if you've got a friend that's Chinese and it causes you to ask them a question and and become more educated and a better friend and learn more, then I think then it really will have accomplished something great. So people can watch for it. How can they, is there a website they can go to that's going to post maybe where they can find out how to see the film and stuff like that? We will post that on Dancing Through the Shadow.com, which is also, that is the website for the book.

it's it's the website we will post anything to do with the film on that site as well as soon as I get the list of countries and channels that that MGM has placed it on then we'll be putting that up so that people will know where they can see it near them well we certainly appreciate you guys coming on the show and sharing this amazing story I would definitely want people to tune in and and check it out give us the other dot com as we go out and we'll wrap the show yeah as I said the dancing through the shadow.com is by far

the best one and if you can't find that just look, leave Bristow up on the internet and you can always, I'm easy to contact, I'm easy to find, and I can always send you the information. Well, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. What an amazing story. I mean, just some of the things that people endure, you know. A lot of people today they just get angry. They go to Starbucks and Maybe they don't get their chai and their latte or whatever. And, you know, it's the end of the world. You see what, see if it will go through in real war times and we might go through again.

So anyway, thanks for coming to the show, Leaf. Folks, check out the book where refined books are sold, dancing through the shadow out May 21st, 2025. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortezs, Chris Foss. Chris Fos won the TikTokany and all those crazy places in the internet. Be good to each other. We'll see you next time.