Review | Leap movie review: legacy of Chinese women’s volleyball team chronicled, with Gong Li as coach Lang Ping in Peter Chan’s sports drama

Leap is intended by its director, Hong Kong’s Peter Chan, as both a nationalistic blockbuster and a nuanced examination of Lang Ping’s complicated legacy

What he delivers is a technically accomplished film Chinese volleyball fans will like, but which will disappoint those looking for a character study of Lang

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The Chinese women’s volleyball team in 1979, as portrayed in Leap (category I; Mandarin), directed by Peter Chan. Gong Li and Huang Bo star.

Published: 6:30pm, 1 Oct 2020Updated: 8:01pm, 2 Oct 2020

3/5 stars

After earning critical acclaim for his past two Chinese productions, American Dreams in China (2013) and Dearest (2014), Hong Kong director Peter Chan Ho-sun dives into China’s lucrative game of patriotic filmmaking with his first feature in six years.

Released a week before China’s National Day holiday, Leap is a decades-spanning look at the accomplishments of the China women’s volleyball team, with Gong Li playing legendary coach Lang Ping. At first glance, it appears to provide a welcome change from films such as Wolf Warrior 2 , Operation Red Sea and The Eight Hundred that use military spectacle to channel national pride.

On closer examination, it’s clear Chan has found it difficult to reconcile delivering a nationalistic blockbuster with crafting a nuanced character portrait around Lang’s complicated legacy.

The film begins in 1979 – a time of historic change when the Chinese people yearned for the outside world to see them, according to text that scrolls across the screen. Chen Zhonghe (played as a young man by Peng Yuchang) joins the team as a trainer and meets the hard-working player Lang (played by Bai Lang, daughter of Lang Ping). The team’s training regime soon brings China the first of several world championship titles, and the two become lifelong allies.

Alternately thrilling and wistful, Leap offers a precise re-enactment of the Chinese team’s exploits on the court, and an intimate portrait of Lang as she becomes a key player for the title-winning team in the 1980s, spends a decade coaching outside China in the 2000s, then returns to lead a subpar Chinese team to glory at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.