Review | We Are Champions film review: Fandy Fan, Berant Zhu play brothers in Taiwanese high-school basketball drama
- Strong performances and a compelling central relationship elevate what could have been a conventional sports drama to new heights
- With echoes of everything from Warrior to Friday Night Lights, it proves you do not need to rewrite the rule book to create entertaining cinema
4/5 stars
A conventional sports drama elevated by strong performances and its compelling central relationship, We Are Champions is proof that you do not need to rewrite the rule book to create entertaining cinema.
Fandy Fan Shao-hsun and Berant Zhu are wholly convincing as basketball-loving half-brothers, who find themselves on rival high school teams competing in Taiwan’s national championships. Director Chang Jung-chi ( Partners in Crime , Touch of the Light ) further enhances his well-worn material by staging some of the most realistic, and physically demanding, ball play ever seen.
After being abandoned by their father, half-brothers Hsiu-yu (Fan) and Tung-hao (Zhu) live in a converted storage room at their uncle’s textiles factory. Their only love is basketball, and while hustling at the local court, they catch the eye of a number of high-school coaches.
Tung-hao is approached by the prestigious Yuying College, but it refuses to offer his older brother a place on account of a hearing problem that forces him to wear a hearing aid. Nevertheless, Hsiu-yu gives Tung-hao his blessing to join the championship side, while he signs up to play for Kuang Cheng, a struggling local school, whose team is on the verge of being disbanded.
Both boys clash with their fellow teammates, as well as their coaches, but inevitably, their talent shines through, and both prove themselves pivotal in propelling their teams into the national HBL play-offs.
With echoes of everything from Warrior and Crying Fist to Coach Carter and Friday Night Lights, We Are Champions ticks all the school sports drama boxes, as Hsiu-yu and Tung-hao inch ever closer to their climactic tête-à-tête.
Where this film differs is in refraining from pitting the brothers against one another. There are moments when tempers flare, but for the most part the central rivalry is muted. Chang portrays the siblings as mutually supportive, helping each other to achieve their goals, even as the encroaching tragedy looms of one being forced to best the other.
Whenever the film strays from the basketball courts, folding in domestic dramas and romantic distractions, they feel superfluous and unnecessary. The return of their father (To Tsung-hua) is clumsily handled; similarly, Hsiu-yu’s burgeoning relationship with Li Linyi’s classmate – forbidden by his coach (Tuan Chun-hao) – sets up repercussions that never materialise.
But these are minor quibbles, as We Are Champions is a rousing, emotionally charged slam dunk.
