Pitching with a purpose
Documentary shines light on some youth who gain a chance to improve their lives via baseball
Agroup of children from poverty-stricken areas from across the country gathered on the outskirts of Beijing. At one time, the kids had been confused and challenged by difficulties unimaginable for many of their contemporaries who were used to a comfortable way of life.
But now, thanks to a charity program launched by Sun Lingfeng, former captain of China’s national men’s baseball team at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, these “children in dilemma”, as he describes them — many of whom are orphans, the children of prisoners or those left behind by parents who have gone missing — see a silver lining.
In 2015, Sun began to recruit children aged between 7 and 9 from poor families to a special baseball team. Selection was based not on their sporting ability, but rather their living conditions.
“I know about baseball, it’s all I can offer them,” Sun said. “Poverty cannot deprive children of the chance to prove themselves. They deserve an equal opportunity with others.”
The children will be sponsored to take part in Sun’s baseball training camp and study at a nearby school until they turn 18, as Sun promised. He has given the program a poetic name — “angels of baseball power”.
In spite of years of continuous devotion, Sun’s story is not widely known by the general public, probably due to baseball’s relatively low popularity in China compared with other sports.
However, a new documentary about these resilient children, who refuse to surrender to a seemingly bleak fate, has changed everything.
When Tough Out was first screened in July at the FIRST International Film Festival in Xining, Qinghai province, it was met with overwhelming acclaim.
It is rated 8.7 out of a total 10 points on Douban, China’s major review website, one of the highest score of all of the year’s Chinese films. The film began public screening nationwide on Dec 11.
Over 60 children are now training at the resort in Tongzhou district in the east of Beijing, which was provided by an entrepreneur, and more philanthropists and companies have lent their support to the program. However, the production reminds Sun of the toughest time of his life.
“There is a world of difference between now and the beginning,” Sun recalled. “Winning people’s confidence was not easy.”
The cost of the program’s initial investment was borne personally by Sun and several of his friends. It was then, when he took the children under his wing to provide them with a seemingly utopian environment, that he began to feel the pressure of “raising a big family”.
“I grew up in a family that was not very wealthy, and I was a very disobedient child,” Sun said. “Baseball
changed my personality, teaching me discipline and how to live life. Without it, I would have probably become a hooligan.”
That emotional resonance explains Sun’s persistence.
Many difficult moments are captured by director Xu Huijing in Tough Out. For example, in the search for a suitable location, Sun’s team had to constantly relocate from one place to another around Beijing.
When they finally find an alternative facility, after the previous one is slated for demolition, the nearby elementary
school is set to close down, meaning that there is nowhere to fulfill the educational needs of the children.
However, compared with the physical challenges, such as locations and equipment, remedying the psychological plight of the children often seems an even more insurmountable challenge.
Filming began in 2016 and one boy’s melancholic demeanor immediately attracted Xu’s lens. The boy, named Xiaoshuang, is from the countryside of Baoding, Hebei province.
Living with his uncle in tough conditions, he never sees his parents. The sentimental Xiaoshuang became an unintended protagonist in the documentary.
Following his story, Xu gradually steps into the world of the children. With a childhood spent in rural surroundings, much of the director’s work has found its focus on the countryside.
“I met a bottleneck in documentary production by then,” Xu said. “But the children made me realize that a documentary doesn’t just have to passively portray the social issues in the countryside. We can also explore the actions that can be taken to solve them.”
Since his epiphany, he would frequently visit the children, but a clear storyline was still lacking until a boy named Ma Hu appeared and, like Xiaoshuang, quickly established himself as another point of focus for Xu’s lens.
Ma from Ningxia Hui autonomous region appeared to be a typical example of the worst possible student a teacher can face: this angry boy frequently fought with teammates and was often disobedient, ignoring the guidance of the coach.
However, he needed to harness that strength and defiance in a more positive way if he was to achieve his goal of becoming a leader in the team.
“I was too naughty back then,” Ma said with a giggle during a recent promotional event for the film in Beijing. “I’m not like that any more. My goal is to become a member of the national team in the future.”
According to Xu’s current plan, he will continuously record the group until they become adults.
“The diversity of their lives can be better displayed then,” the director reckons.
Currently, however, sport is the shared goal of these “baseball angels”.
Sun proudly says that the young players in the training camps are now among the best of their age group in
China, and a strong collective honor is being established.
Last year, the children were even invited to play several games in a local teen tournament in the United States.
Sun confessed that he considered giving up the charity program at times, but he said there was no reason to quit.
“Once I gave up, the children would probably not only think I cheated them, but also that the world has cheated them,” Sun said. “How can I do that?”
Sun recalled that people often ask him whether it is worthwhile to contribute so much to the project, and says it is wrong to only consider himself as a “contributor”.
“The spirit of the children gives us mental strength,” he says. “To be fair, we also gain a lot.”
Speaking about whether the popularity of Tough Out, which has made some of the children celebrities, will influence their healthy growth, Sun said: “I keep reminding them not to be cocky, but as future athletes, they need to get used to being in the spotlight — and when it shines on you, there is a responsibility to behave well.
“Whether the children will take baseball as their profession or not, they have already achieved so much,” he continued. “By feeling the love of others, they will be able to go on and make a contribution to society in the future.”
In November, Elemeet, a film distribution platform that facilitates a limited release of specialty films, and iQiyi, a major online streaming media platform in China, jointly launched a long-term project to create more screening opportunities for young filmmakers’ arthouse movies and documentaries, which often lack the opportunity to be presented in mainstream cinemas in high quality.
Tough Out, which was also coproduced by Elemeet and iQiyi, is the first film to benefit from the project.
“The film offers more possibilities for storytelling angles in Chineselanguage documentaries,” Qi Kang, producer of Tough Out from iQiyi, said, explaining why the production was chosen to be developed into a feature-length film for cinema.
“We care about the lives of these youths,” Qi said. “When humanities are mixed with business potential without too many restrictions on its format, really good content can reach a wider audience.”