Starring: Li Zhaolin, Shi Liang, Hu Jun
Director: Hou Yong
Category: I (Putonghua)
More notable as clumsy propaganda than a revelatory look at China's Olympic lore, the based-on-fact dramatisation of sprinter Liu Changchun's participation in the 1932 Los Angeles games is a cinematic stumble. From the stodgy opening credits, the film is weighed down by a political heavy-handedness that renders the production as forceful as a malfunctioning starter's pistol.
Liu's journey to become China's first Olympian is exciting and inspirational - elements all but buried under the formulations of writer Wang Xingdong's scenario and further eroded by Hou Yong's pedestrian direction. A famed cinematographer for his work with Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang, Hou displays little affinity for narrative or thespian nuance in relating Liu's trek from relative obscurity as a Manchurian university track champion to participating in the world's most famous sporting event.
It is a story ideally suited for the screen, embracing triumph and failure on battlefields large and small. While still a student, Liu (Li Zhaolin, above, an actor in need of better direction) finds his life disrupted when Japan invades China's northeast and establishes the puppet nation of Manchukuo. Opposed to representing the collaborationist state at the Olympics, Liu puts his life in danger by escaping to Peiping (now Beijing). There, he is given the cold shoulder by the weak-willed government but eventually finds financial support from warlord Zhang Xueliang (Hu Jun).