Yolo

Le Ying is in her thirties and has not left the house for years. She has no work, no friends, and her days pass in her room. Her family pressures her and she quarrels with her sister. One day she leaves. She takes a job. Then she comes across a boxing gym and meets a trainer there. Hao Kun teaches boxing and is a fighter who lost. Le Ying starts training. She loses weight, gets stronger, and wants a bout. Her aim is not to be champion; she wants to win once. Jia Ling directs and plays the lead; she co-wrote the screenplay. Lei Jiayin plays the trainer. It is a Chinese production. The film is a remake of a Japanese picture; the source tells the same story and Jia Ling moved it into a Chinese setting. Jia Ling prepared for a year and lost a great deal of weight; that process was kept at the centre of the publicity and was argued over. The film took a very large result at the Chinese box office and entered the most watched productions of its year. The matter it treats is how a person looks at herself; boxing is used as a form of decision rather than a sport. The final bout does not end in a win and the narrative does that deliberately. The narrative also shows Le Ying's family and names it as the source of the pressure. Its limit is method; the emphasis on weight in the publicity overshadowed the film's own argument and was criticised. Who it is for: viewers who like Chinese cinema and personal drama on the ground of sport. Who it is not for: the shape is familiar, the emotional steering high, and the emphasis on the body contested.