Call it “Rocky,’’ Asian style. Yung Chang’s documentary “China Heavyweight’’ is an intimate look at teen boys (and a few girls) in rural China who hope that becoming professional boxers will let them escape a lifetime of drudgery in the tobacco fields.
At the center is Qi Moxiang, a one-time boxing star who, without getting paid, recruits young people from the impoverished Sichuan province as potential Olympic boxing champs. (He tells the kids, “If you make the provincial team, you’ll be the country’s people. Don’t train hard, and you’ll be no one but your mums’ kids.’’) Qi’s mom nags him about getting married, but he doesn’t have time for women: “Boxing is what I love the most,’’ he tells her. His dream is to return to the ring for one more stab at becoming “a boxing king’’ like Mike Tyson.
“China Heavyweight’’ is Chang’s follow-up to his lauded 2007 documentary “Up the Yangtze,’’ a disturbing look at peasant families whose lives have been uprooted by the construction of the enormous Three Gorges dam. Just as he did in that movie, Chang doesn’t pull his punches in this continuing look at a changing, out-of-control China.