WHAT: A screening of the documentary film China Heavyweight which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by a Q&A with the director Yung Chang (Up The Yangtze).
WHERE: AMC Forum 22
COST: $13.50
WHEN: Saturday, May 19th at 8:05 PM
**NOTE: You do not need to register for this. I am just passing on the information. You can show up like you would for a regular movie but with the added bonus of being able to ask the director some questions!**
Info: 2012. Canada.
Directed by: Yung Chang.
Story: In 1959, Mao Zedong had imposed a ban on the sport of boxing in China in the late 1950s considering it as “too Western and brutal”. The ban was finally lifted in 1987 after three decades of restrictions and boxing began being taught in schools.
The film is about Qi Moxiang, a boxing coach who, alongside Zhao Zhong, the boxing program director, goes to rural China to recruit from ordinary peasant hopefuls to be trained for a possible sporting and Olympic career. The documentary shows his visit to Huili County in the southwestern Sichuan province,[1] and how the boys and girls picked come of age, in sports and in life.
The film concentrates on two boys chosen: Miao Yunfei and He Zhongli whom coach Qi has brought to the Chinese provincial finals. An added twist: determined to provide a role model for his students, he decides to fight professionally again against a much younger, fitter rival from Japan… The final scene in the documentary shows new girls and boys lining up in the school yard and punching the hands of the boxing recruiters, hoping to be chosen for a sporting career and the next “glory” away from their life of drudgery in the villages. (from Wikipedia)
Trailer: China Heavyweight Trailer
Review: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/china-heavyweight-a-rocky-road-to-redemption/article2428859/
**NOTE: You do not need to register for this. I am just passing on the information. You can show up like you would for a regular movie but with the added bonus of being able to ask the director some questions!**
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