For the second year running, the Far East Film Festival—Europe's premier showcase for popular Asian cinema—shifted its dates forward by two months, to late June. The same timing that delayed the Tokyo Paralympic Games by a full year. That double postponement allowed the Udine festival almost perfect timing to premiere Zero to Hero, a biography of Hong Kong Paralympic champion So Wa Wai.
Biographies of Paralympic athletes often uncover remarkable stories, and Jimmy Wan's 2021 film is no exception: it tells a compelling narrative that deserves attention, though perhaps with more emotional grandeur than Western audiences might prefer.
So Wa Wai competed in the T36 category (T for track, 36 one of the classifications for athletes with cerebral palsy) and achieved historic sprint results starting at the Atlanta Games in '96, still a teenager. But his early years in mainland China—before his family moved to Hong Kong—gave no hint of the success to come. Much credit belongs to his mother, who refused to be discouraged by her son's fragile health. Knowing the world would never see him as ordinary, she dedicated herself to making him extraordinary. The athlete's remarkable determination was forged by an equally determined mother who gave herself over, with stubborn devotion, to improving his present and building his future—a boy born disadvantaged in the world's eyes, yet gifted with genuine talent.
The competition scenes unfold with gripping emotional power, interspersed with sequences of daily life, family moments, and training sessions. The director sometimes relies too heavily on sweeping music and manufactured sentiment. Some crucial events are oversimplified or distorted, undermining the credibility of what could have been a genuinely inspiring biography (it should be noted that both actors playing So are non-disabled).
Despite its overwrought style and these shortcomings, the story of a Paralympic champion's success—complete with inevitable disappointments and obstacles—remains genuinely absorbing.