Sports dramas booming as Beijing ushers in Winter Olympics season

Sports movie and TV productions are gaining steam in China in the run-up to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, slated to open on Friday, keeping the athletic spirit alive in the freezing climes.

Enthusiasm of viewers has been running high since "Beyond," or "Chaoyue" in Chinese, a TV series about China's short-track speed skating team, debuted in prime time on January 9 on China's major TV broadcaster CCTV.

Directed by Zhang Xiaobo, the 29-episode drama follows two parallel storylines and highlights the journey of chasing dreams on ice for China's three generations of short-track speed skaters over the past 30 years.

"In the filming of competitive sports, we need to tell the stories of individuals," said Zhang Xiaobo, noting that the success of moving beyond is not measured in speed, but in mind and spirit.

Being available simultaneously on the major online platforms of iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku, it currently has a rating of 8.2 out of 10 based on more than 17,000 reviews on the review platform Douban.

"Though I didn't know much about short-track speed skating before, I watched 'Beyond' with great interest, maybe this is because people are easily inspired by sportsmanship," netizen Diansan commented on Douban, calling the drama "a pleasant surprise at the start of 2022."

Apart from "Beyond," about a dozen other sports-themed productions are either being aired or in the pipeline.

On the list is the 80-episode sitcom "Dreams Can Come True," scheduled for airing from January 24 to May 13, depicting how a family in one of Beijing's hutongs, or traditional alleys, realizes their dream of ice and snow. Also scheduled is the cartoon film "Me and My Winter Games," which gathers some of China's most beloved animated characters with the mascots of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Bing Dwen Dwen and Shuey Rhon Rhon.

China has not seen many domestic sports dramas in recent years with only a few titles coming into the spotlight. "Leap," a sports film that recounts the stories of the Chinese national women's volleyball team over the last 40 years, raked in more than 830 million yuan (about 130 million US dollars) in 2020.

The official film of the Beijing Olympic Winter Games, set to be released by the end of this year, is expected to be the last heavyweight sports work in 2022.

Chinese filmmaker Lu Chuan, general director of the film, said the movie will be a tribute to the Olympic spirit amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With Beijing being the first city to host both the Summer and Winter editions of the Olympic Games, Lu said "I hope we can capture the most exciting, inspiring moments of the Beijing Winter Olympics as well as the stories behind the scenes that reflect the sparkles of human nature."