A still from “China Heavyweight,” directed by Yung Chang.
    Courtesy of Yuanfang Media



    With the film set to screen again in Beijing, China Real Time caught up with Mr. Chang so find out how he did it. Here are the edited excerpts: 


    WSJ: How were you able to release “China Heavyweight” so widely in China?

    Yung Chang: The intention from the very beginning was to work in collaboration with a Chinese company as a co-production. In that way we were able to secure a theatrical license through Sarft [China’s broadcast regulator, formally the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television]. Given that there’s a co-production treaty between Canada and China, it allowed for us to work very smoothly as a co-production. It has to go through a censorship process, and we made very few changes. The Chinese company, Yuanfang Media, invested their own money into advertisement, and it was all essentially word of mouth, using Weixin [WeChat], Weibo, and social media. We had quite a bit of success with critical reception to the film, and as a result distributors felt confident they could sustain the film in a theater.

    Yung Chang
    Courtesy of Yuanfang Media

    You mentioned a film production treaty between China and Canada. Could you talk a bit more about that?

    For the China-Canada co-production treaty, a certain percentage of the funding for the film has to be from each country. The majority was from Canada, and I think the percentage breakdown was about 70-30, 30% China, 70% Canada. The director, producer, writer, etc. were all Canadian, or like myself, Chinese-Canadian. We did all the editing and the post-production in Canada, and obviously the production in China. Used a Chinese crew, cinematographer, sound, the essential production crew.

    “China Heavyweight” is considered a domestic film in China. Did that make it easier to get through regulations?

    Definitely. I think it would have been next to impossible as a 100% Canadian documentary to have been able to get a license in China. The treaty process is very difficult. There’s a lot of paperwork. It can be quite frustrating and time consuming, and it would be a lot easier to go completely 100% Canadian in terms of financing. But it was worth the effort.

    You mentioned you had to make several small changes. Like what? 

    In the opening of the film there’s a scene with two boys fighting. The one boy has a bloody nose. In the Chinese release we had to reduce, maybe by one shot, the amount of blood. The other change we had to make was, toward the end of the film, the principal of the school makes a speech about the 60th anniversary of China, and he makes a comment that one can interpret as ironic.  And we couldn’t sneak that irony by—we had to make that cut. It was a minor statement. At the end of the film, [Coach Qi] gets back in the ring. He has a fight with a Japanese boxer. And there was a comment about that. But in the end we decided we didn’t have to concede to that one.

    How do you think this film plays to both audiences?

    For a Western eye it’s more an ethnographic study. People are able to glean a little bit about rural life and see some themes about modernization in China. It’s a completely different reception in China. People walked away from the film after screenings in China with a very deep impression of Coach Qi Moxiang. Even consider the title of the movie. In Chinese, it’s an idiom “qianchui bailian (千錘百煉),” a direct translation would be “to be tried and tested a thousand times over.” Qianchui bailian is very personal.

    You gave some Q&As after the screenings [in China]. Were any questions unexpected? 

    It was difficult for audiences not accustomed to this sort of documentary, [some] thought it was scripted, or fictionalized. There’s a whole other conversation about documentaries in China, the term, jilupian (纪录片) in Chinese, it means reportage, and people are used to documentaries being a CCTV production, talking heads, probably about history or propagandist. So we were presenting something that we were trying to term, our definition was zhenshi dianying (真实电影), reality filmmaking. We scratched the term “documentary” and we were calling it a reality movie.

    I mean everybody is looking at China for everything. It’s the place. I think it’s at the crossroads right now. Between Bollywood and Hollywood. China has a regional market that makes money and doesn’t have to be a millions-of-dollars-budget for a film. It could be a million-dollar budget and make millions of dollars. And that’s sort of like Bollywood. But I think there are expectations and a lot of hope that China can transcend that, and be this global entity. Every time I go to Beijing I get this anxiety attack. It’s like going to Hollywood. Beijing is sort of like Los Angeles. You walk in there, you’re with your friends who are all filmmakers, and everybody is talking about money, get a story and all that matters is a good script and everyone is so excited and energetic about making something, and I feel like a country bumpkin from Canada trying to figure it out.

    What marketing budget did you have?

    It’s pitiful. I’d say a $10,000 Canadian budget. So I think it was really helpful that we had good relationships with people and distributors. They helped us a lot.

    How did you market it? 

    We had an army of volunteers. I traveled to about five cities to promote the film. There were about 13 total in the tour, and in each city there’s these film geeks, film club geeks. And they come out like in Canada or the US, classic film nerds. So people really follow this. I think Douban is a really important website for indie cinema and a lot of followers use Douban to find out where things are playing. Social media, word of mouth, grassroots campaigning was our technique. No different than how we would have released the film in North America with very little budget.

    – Laura Fitch

    China Heavyweight screens as part of Asian Cinema Week on Saturday, March 15, 8pm at Broadway Cinematheque Moma in Beijing


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