Promotional material for Never Stop Photo: Maoyan

Promotional material for Breaking Through Photo: Maoyan

Following the popularity of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, Chinese new movie Breaking Through, which focuses on China's first gold medalist at the Winter Olympics, is set for release on Friday. The film is not the only one aiming to gain more attention with the help of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Dozens of films and TV works, including dramas and variety shows about winter sports, have been launched or are about to screen to capitalize on the popularity of Beijing 2022.

These works can be roughly divided into two categories:

The first type focuses on stories related to the Winter Olympics in which the protagonist can be an athlete or just an ordinary person waiting for the Games. 

The other type takes a single Olympic event as a narrative thread. The protagonists are professional athletes who win medals and gain happiness in their lives after years of hard training.

Narrating the story of China's first Winter Olympic gold medalist 20 years ago, Breaking Through  belongs to the second type. The film follows skater and world champion Yang Yang as the young woman from a small town in northern China makes her way to the international Olympic stage step by step.

Xiao Fuqiu, a film critic based in Shanghai, told the Global Times that the huge success of Beijing 2022 has contributed to an increase in the production of films and dramas on the topic and a broader audience.

To the big and small screen

Short-track speed skating is one of the most popular themes pursued by Chinese producers.

The 29-episode TV drama Never Stop is a good example. The show takes place against the background of Beijing's successful bid in 2015 to host the 2022 Games, depicting the ups and downs Chinese short-track speed skaters have experienced since the sport was first made an official competition event by China's top sports authority in 1982.

"Throughout the past two weeks, I have personally felt the passion of these people. This passion has allowed my appreciation to go beyond the Olympics itself and extend to the  charm of winter sports," Chen Shuze, executive producer of the TV series, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

"Those who have developed an interest in winter sports will seek to further explore sports and those athletes by turning to dramas and films for knowledge."

"Audiences will learn how these athletes made it to the top through their efforts and how they too can step up to the next stage with confidence," added Chen.

In order to be as true to reality as possible, the film crew carried out detailed research into how the sport evolved from 1989 to 2014, while the actors underwent 70 days of training with the help of coaches and athletes from the national skating team.

The producers also invited international technical consultants to oversee the details for each competition depicted on the screen.

Besides TV dramas, variety shows have also been trying to fully enjoy the positive fallout from the Beijing Winter Olympics.

New variety shows such as Snow Day and Go Skiing with Champions have emerged one after another, and even some classic variety shows that have been around for several seasons such as Running Man and Who's the Murderer have also added winter elements to their content.

Zhang Peng, a film researcher at Nanjing University's National Research Center of Cultural Industries, noted that culture and sports are two highly integrated fields. People who like sports tend to be very active when it comes to cultural consumption, including watching related films and dramas. 

Zhang told the Global Times that Chinese athletes' brilliant performances and their positive personalities and values on display at the Games can be good sources of inspiration for scriptwriter and filmmakers to tell excellent Chinese stories.

Depicting the spirit of sports

Not only has the number of sports dramas been on the rise, but also has their quality. 

There have been no lack of highly reviewed works. The drama Never Stop, for instance, has a high 8.2/10 on Chinese media review platform Douban. However, variety seems to be an issue as many viewers have remarked that these shows lean too heavily on love stories.

How to add more substance to films or TV works themed on winter sports is a major challenge that Chinese filmmakers must face.

Traditionally, the Chinese film and television market has had few works in the sports genre, let alone ones focused on winter sports. 

According to the analysis of Xiao and Zhang, the main reason for this is that the public is not that familiar with winter sports, leading to a lack of interest in investing in the production of these types of film and television works.

"Before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, we have no shortage of excellent athletes with good stories, but a lack of market recognition and public acceptance led to few productions made," Zhang said.

"But now things are different. Chinese audiences are starting to pay attention to winter sports due to the flood of trending topics about the Winter Olympics," he added.

More attention means more opportunities in the sports genre, but this also brings challenges.

"For sports-themed film and television works about historical moments in sports history, most audiences already know how things ended up," explained Xiao. 

"How to dig out and present the characters' inner mental struggles, growth and their emotional stories is something filmmakers must figure out if they want to truly win the hearts of moviegoers."