At a recent reception in Park City, Utah, Chinese Canadian director and screenwriter, Yung Chang wasn’t hard to spot, wearing a red fundraiser toque and flanked by two prominent cast members from his most recent documentary, China Heavyweight.
The EyeSteelFilm, which opened at Sundance 2012, is the story about poor, rural kids in China, scouted for their punch-throwing smarts then cultivated and trained to become Chinese Olympic boxing hopefuls.
Writer Lorri Vodi Rupard invited Chang, the former Toronto and Montreal native, to discuss his growing canon of work.
Lorri Rupard: Where did you grow up and when did you definitively decide to be a filmmaker?
Yung Chang: “I was born just outside of Toronto and I attended high school in the city. I’ve always loved films because my father introduced me to them at a young age–black and white films and others. I vividly remember Hitchcock films and also Wolfman vs Frankenstein. And Sleeping Beauty. There was something about that escapism that I really liked. Strangely enough, documentaries are what I’ve been making and they’re really more about confronting life.”
