Saturday, December 28, 2013

China Heavyweight (Chang, 2012): Mini-Film Review

One entry point into the boxing documentary China Heavyweight 千錘百煉 is to consider it as a presentation of atmosphere more than the presentation of a story. If narrative does not exist, but is a construction we use to make sense of reality, then this film would get my vote to be a case study. Three boxers, Qi Moxiang, Miao Yunfei, & He Zongli -- one loves boxing with selfless purity and devotion -- are not vehicles within Freytag's triangle, they are people we know for a while. Poverty. Rural teenagers. The lure of the global city. These realities are linked for 90 minutes by flawless cinematography, traditional and innovative, and ambient sounds, felt not heard. And voices.

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