China Heavyweight is award winning Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang’s second documentary exploring China’s ever-changing economic landscape. Chang follows the charismatic Qi Moxiang, a former boxing star and state coach who recruits young fighting talent from impoverished farms and villages across Sichuan province in Southwest China. Through hard work and discipline, these boys and girls come of age, trained in the art of boxing and the game of life. They are filled with Olympic dreams, hoping to become China’s next amateur heroes. But the pull of professionalism also weighs upon their shoulders. Their coach hopes to make a storied comeback in a final pro fight, to show them the way. The top student boxers face dramatic choices as they graduate – should they fight for the collective good as amateurs or for themselves and their own personal gain as professionals? It’s a metaphor for the choices that everyone faces in the New China today.
