Official selection: Sundance Film Festival
CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT
A Film by Yung Chang
Hard-Hitting Documentary about the New China, from the Makers of Up the Yangtze and The Last Train Home, Opens For Exclusive Engagement Friday, July 6 at IFC Center!
CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT, a probing and insightful new documentary about athletics, dedication and the seismic changes rocking contemporary China, opens Friday, July 6 for an exclusive engagement at IFC Center. Award-winning director Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze) will appear in person at select shows opening weekend.
For his second feature, Yung Chang returns to China for another riveting look at the country’s ongoing reinvention of itself—this time through the lens of sports. The film follows the charismatic Qi Moxiang, a former boxing star and state coach who recruits young fighting talent from impoverished farms and villages across Sichuan province. A select few boys (and girls) are sent to national training centers, with the hope of discovering China’s next Olympic heroes. But will these potential boxing champions trade the honor of fighting for their country for the personal rewards of turning pro and potential celebrity? Their rigorous training, teenage trials and family tribulations are expertly intertwined with Coach Qi’s own desire to get back in the ring for one more shot at victory. Cinematically rich and intimately observed, China Heavyweight is all at once thrilling sports drama, astute social commentary and a beautifully crafted portrait of an athlete.
“From On the Waterfront to Enter the Dragon, movies about boxing and kung fu transcend action and become metaphors for the challenges of life and the willpower of the human spirit. I’ve always wanted to make an action film. Somehow, my decision to make CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT began with the idea of melding the two genres of kung fu and boxing into an ‘action documentary,’” notes director Yung Chang. “The last decade has witnessed the incredible ascent of Chinese boxing prowess in the competitive ring,” he adds. “In 2008, as China hosted the Summer Olympic Games, traditional media coverage and China’s nascent online blogosphere provided a flood of inspiration, stories, characters and research information—all of which became an impetus for further investigation.”
Yung Chang’s first documentary feature, Up The Yangtze (2007), uses China’s highly contested Three Gorges Dam as a dramatic backdrop for a moving and richly detailed narrative of a peasant family negotiating unprecedented changes. It played at numerous festivals, including Sundance, and was one of the top-grossing documentaries of 2008. CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT, executive produced by the filmmakers of the hit documentary The Last Train Home, is Chang’s second feature. He is currently in production on The Fruit Hunters, a documentary about nature, commerce and obsession in the fruit underworld. He is also writing Eggplant, a fiction feature film about a Taiwanese wedding photographer in China.
IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas at West 3rd Street, box office: 212 924-7771.
For showtimes, advance tickets and more information, visit ifccenter.com or www.zeitgeistfilms.com/chinaheavyweight