The Chinese feature film, The One Man Olympics, that we shot all last summer, has opened nationwide. I will not review the film overmuch, since I play a featured foreign role; which renders me too subjective to do so. I will say this: through out my career I have hated to watch myself, and very rarely do, be it on TV or film. However, under the direction of Hou Yong, a genius with light and the moods of color, for the first time I did not flinch when this craggy old face was on screen.
It is the story of Liu Changchun, the first person to represent China in the Olympics, in Los Angeles, 1932. While the liberties of storytelling somewhat gloss over absolute historical fact, it is a very human film that makes one feel good to be one, and particularly to be a Chinese human during those so turbulent times. The screenplay has some structural problems, with perhaps too many flashbacks in a short period of time trying to cover a rather epic story.
Yes, it is undoubtedly a "feel-good film," which does not diminish its impact as a story worth telling; I hope it receives the box-office attention expected of it. It is scheduled to run 100 days in cinemas across China. The tragic earthquake in southwest China has preempted the press coverage the film was geared to garner for its opening. Indeed, the gala celebration of its opening turned into a combination film fest and a fundraiser for the as yet untold thousands of victims of the quake.
A short review from CRI is available here; and a really fun presentation of that gala night is here, and here. Yes, my vanity insists that I post a picture of the cast of the film on-stage below; I'm the ugly old dude center-left (in stage direction lingo), minus hat, which was lost that night, damn it!
