Review - Leap (2020)

August 7, 2026
 
Leap – China, 2020
 

Movie mentors have it made. Be they music teachers that throw their batons at students’ heads, ballroom dancing teachers substituting at an inner city high school, or – in the case of Peter Ho-Shun Chan’s Leap – a volleyball coach who pummels his players with hard-hit volleyballs until, sore, depleted of energy, and bleeding from the knees, they give them “30 good stops,” their methods, while unorthodox to say the least, will have been shown to have been just what a main character or team needs to go from good to great. And what words of wisdom they have. At just the moment when the players are at their lowest and facing imminent defeat, a few words from their wise guru is always enough to reignite the players’ passions and rather abruptly improve their skills. It’s a lie, of course (just look at the poor mentors trying in vain to inspire the other side), but it’s also downright cinematic.
 
Chan’s film is based on the real-life experiences of Lang Ping (played at different ages by Lydia Bai and legendary actress Gong Li), who as a young woman trained and played on the Chinese national team in the 1981 Volleyball World Cup before becoming a successful coach for both the U.S. and the Chinese Olympic volleyball teams. Also on this journey is an assistant coach named Chen Zhonghe (played by Yuchang Peng and Huang Bo), who begins the film a bit like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own and ending the film also like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. Early in the film, Chen learns that Lang cannot practice with the team until she successfully lifts 200 kilograms, a challenge that she completes after Chen suggests she quit. This has a rather curious effect. At one point during a practice game against the men’s team, Chen becomes so impressed with Lang’s efforts and energy that he blurts out, “If you can beat us, I’ll train with you for life!” One guess how that game ends.
 
In a more formulaic film, that line would culminate in a partnership of sorts, perhaps even start a romance. Instead, Leap jumps ahead to the World Cup championship, in which Lang’s team competes against Japan. It is a move that, in most sports films, would signal the arrival of the climax. The genius of Chan’s film, however, is that the game and the fervent efforts of the young women who play in it, have an additional importance, one similar to that of the 1980 Olympic Hockey Finals between the United States and the Soviet Union. In other words, victory would have incredible significance. It would be a sign that the past does not define them, that they can rise from the ashes of political turmoil and meet the challenges needed to move forward. In one of the most surprising moments of any Chinese film I’ve ever seen, the team’s coach, the same one who is intent upon making his players the best in the world regardless of the stress and strain his methods put on them, recalls the pride he felt when he played for the national team in 1966 and his utter heartbreak at the ten years that went by before any athlete could compete again.  His words fire up his team, and this time, I completely believe that they would.
 
And then Leap leaps ahead, yet the economic development that takes place in the coming years has a curious effect. It enables Lang to pursue an education in the United States, while Chen remains in China, eventually achieving the coveted position of head coach of the women’s volleyball team. Progress, it seems, separates them, and it is nationalism, not love, that ultimately reconnects them.
 
Alas, too much screen time is devoted to games whose outcome are already known or predictable and not enough to the evolving relationship and personalities of its two lead characters. Also, Leap cannot escape many of the familiar tropes of other sports films. Almost every sports film has an undervalued player that proves pivotal to the team’s success later on, a player that tries to quit only to return and try even harder, a coach who has to learn to overcome erroneous preconceptions, and a much-needed heart-to-heart when seemingly down and out in a game’s final moments. There are also scenes that are eerily reminiscent of more impactful ones from Remember the Titans and Mr. Baseball. Interestingly, the film makes a point of flashing onto the screen the names and numbers of all of the members of the team, which, I suspect, plays better if one is already knowledgeable of the players and their exploits.
 
However, when the film focuses on the question of the importance of sports to a nation that is no longer recovering from adversity, it is a revelation. I thought back to 1980, to a time when two generations, parent and child, believed that nuclear war could erupt at any moment, to those games that took on extra significance between they were us versus them, and then my mind flashed to the present day. Would a game played today resonate in the same way? Twenty years later, would people remember where they were when the winning goal was scored. I doubt it. Trauma, and a country’s recover from it, makes it important to rally as a country, to look for clear evidence of strength and resilience, and to be able to wave one’s national flag unflinchingly. Remove that, and what do you have? A quest for television ratings? A medal count that will be forgotten the next day? Fantastic stories about individuals and the obstacles they overcame? The possibility of endorsement deals and financial security? The times have certainly changed. (on Blu-ray from Imprint)
 
3 stars
 
*Leap is in Mandarin and English.
*It goes without saying that both Gong Li and Huang Bo give impressive, heartfelt performances.

Review - Black & White: The Dawn of Justice - 2014

August 25, 2016

Black & White: The Dawn of Justice – Taiwan, 2014

The circumstances that Black & White: The Dawn of Justice lays out are indeed frightening – ten missing criminals, all of whom appear in a cryptic video that eerily resembles the kind associated with a suicide bomber’s last testament; a series of explosions, each one designed to bring a part of Kaohsiung to its knees; and rumors of chemical warfare. Into this brewing catastrophe steps Wu Ying-Hsiung (Mark Chao), the central character from the first Black & White film, as well as the television show that the films serve as prequel to, and, as the first scene attests, he is a man who has not mellowed one iota. In the scene, we watch as he almost single-handedly fends off a series of terrorists intent on getting their hands on a high-ranking military official who has access to an important code. It’s an exciting scene, and it stands up there with the more memorable intros from the Bond series or Mission Impossible films, yet it’s almost all down hill from there.

Part of the problem with Tsai Yueh-Hsun's The Dawn of Justice is that savvy viewers will quickly notice uncanny similarities to other (and better) films. Stop me if you’ve heard these before – a villain with a deep bass voice, a secret society intent of destroying a city and then rebuilding it from scratch, a detonator and a choice of who lives and dies. In other words, the film borrows extensively from both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises. Other elements seem taken from the Mission Impossible films, and, oddly enough, shoot-em-up video games. For example, in one scene, our heroes find a secret path, go up a long ladder, and turn around to find a villain for each of them to take out. Then once they have vanquished these foes, a new and more powerful one emerges, one that will take their combined efforts to defeat. Later they have to climb all the way up to the top of a building where their final opponent is causally waiting for them. I half expected them to pick up a more powerful weapon along the way and to eat a berry for extra energy.

Like the previous film, The Dawn of Justice never lets up, jumping from one action scene to another, with only a few down moments thrown in to explain just what the heck is going on and just who everyone is. It helps if you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the first film, for Dawn of Justice doesn’t bother to explain who most of the characters are. However, if you can remember the characters from 24, you’ll be familiar with these character types. There’s the police chief who wants to ground Wu. Think the head of CTU in any season in which Tony Almeida or Michelle Dressler aren’t in charge. There’s the computer expert trying to ascertain the villains’ whereabouts with very little help from his superiors. Think Chloe O’Brian. And there are a few female colleagues on the case as well. They could easily be any of the one-season CTU agents who are pulled into action after receiving a clue and not being able to communicate with Jack. Then of course there’s the reluctant partner who at first dislikes or don’t trust Jack. Here, think Chase Edmunds. Like Jack’s, we have a feeling that Wu’s doubters will eventually come around, too.

The film is helped greatly by the all-too brief appearance of Xu Da Fu (Bo Huang), the criminal turned hero from the first film. He shows up as the tenth suicide bomber, yet his involvement is anything but voluntary. Xu is every bit as energetic as Wu is staid, and Huang and Chao make the most of their limited screen time together. In fact, Xu’s storyline also gives the film its emotional depth, which is more than a little strange given how many lives are at stake if all goes according to the terrorists’ plans. However, most of Kaohsiung’s civilians remain background figures and are not given much screen time to develop a connection with the audience. In an interesting move thematically, what screen time they do receive features mobs of them ransacking stores and doing snatch-and-grabs - not necessarily the kinds of deeds that would endear them to the audience. Even when Wu runs in the middle of a panicked mob and saves a young child from being trampled, the scene fails. It’s a near carbon copy of Katie Holmes’s heroics in Batman Begins.

When the film does devote time to a new character, the results are hit and miss. A fellow police officer named Chen Zhen (Lin Gengxin) makes his grand entrance just as Wu is dangling perilously from a freeway overpass. What should be a heroic moment is used instead to establish the character’s oddball personality – instead of helping Wu, Chen snaps a selfie with him and then complains about the placement of Wu’s hand. The moment plays worse than it reads. Another character, Huang Shi-Kai (Shiou Chieh Kai), a member of an elite military unit known as the Black Hawks, fares much better. We get a clear sense of just how he skilled and principled he is, and everything he attempts to do later on in the film is completely believable.

Unfortunately, too little of the film feels original. From its use of plot points from Christopher Nolen’s Batman trilogy to its many clichéd supporting characters, there’s just never a sense that we’re seeing anything new, and no amount of energy and action can make up for this. Wu, Huang, and Xu are all intriguing characters, yet they’re stuck in a movie made by a studio too afraid to venture outside of established action-film norms. The film didn’t need strained attempts at comedy or action scenes exaggerated to the point of being parody; what it needed was to trust that audiences would invest in the film’s characters and willingly go wherever the ride took them. They needed to take a chance. That they didn’t is obvious, and the result is a film that is watchable, yet ultimately forgettable. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 stars

*Black & White: The Dawn of Justice is in Mandarin with English subtitles.