General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Leap (夺冠)

Leap (夺冠) is a 2020 Chinese sports drama film directed by Peter Chan (陈可辛) that recounts the wins and losses of the Chinese women's national volleyball team over roughly four decades, from the late 1970s to the team's 2016 Rio Olympic Games title¹. It was originally titled China Women's Volleyball Team (中国女排) before being renamed². Gong Li plays Lang Ping (郎平), the star player of the 1980s team who later coached the side to the 2016 Olympic championship, and Huang Bo plays her longtime colleague Chen Zhonghe (陈忠和)³. The film was released in mainland China on 25 September 2020, ahead of the National Day holiday².

Key fact	Detail
Director / screenwriter	Peter Chan (Peter Ho-Sun Chan); screenplay by Zhang Ji¹^•⁴
Release	25 September 2020 in mainland China; 135 minutes; Mandarin²^•¹
Original title	China Women's Volleyball Team (中国女排), later changed to Leap (夺冠)²
Lead cast	Gong Li as Lang Ping, Huang Bo as Chen Zhonghe, with Wu Gang, Peng Yuchang, and Bai Lang, Lang Ping's daughter, as the young Lang Ping³
Three centerpiece matches	1981 World Cup final vs Japan, 2008 Beijing Olympics vs the United States, 2016 Rio Olympics quarterfinal vs Brazil⁵
Box office	Passed 100 million yuan (about $15 million) one day after release; later passed 600 million yuan⁶^•⁷
Major awards	Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay at the 33rd Golden Rooster Awards; Outstanding Screenplay at the Huabiao Film Awards⁸
Oscar submission	China's official selection for the 2021 Academy Award for International Feature Film⁹

Spoilers

Story and structure

The film opens in 1979 at the Zhangzhou training base in Fujian, where the Chinese women's volleyball squad trains in rudimentary conditions as the country begins its reform and opening-up period³. Chen Zhonghe joins the team as an assistant trainer and meets the hard-working young Lang Ping, played by Bai Lang, Lang Ping's real-life daughter³. One scene has a sports-commission official travel two days and nights to Zhangzhou to report that the United States team is experimenting with computer-assisted training; lacking such equipment, the head coach responds by raising the net 15 centimeters and pushing the team harder¹⁰.

Three matches carry the narrative. Screenwriter Zhang Ji selected three games from the team's history: the 1981 World Cup final against Japan, the 2008 Beijing Olympics match against the United States, and the 2016 Rio Olympics quarterfinal against Brazil⁵. The 1981 and 2016 games frame the film as symmetrical wings: in both, Japan and Brazil were then among the world's strongest sides with long winning streaks against China and home-crowd advantage, and in both China won 3:2 after five grueling sets. The 1981 final marked Lang Ping's debut as the team's primary attacker; the 2016 quarterfinal showcased her as coach⁵.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics match sits at the structural midpoint. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics pool stage, China, coached by Chen Zhonghe, lost 3-2 to the United States, coached by Lang Ping, before a home crowd; China later lost to Brazil in the semifinal and won bronze⁵^•¹⁹. The film treats this as an emotionally charged moment for both coaches and for Chinese spectators, and it bridges the story to Lang Ping's return as China's head coach, with Chen Zhonghe stepping aside⁵. The film ends with the 2016 Rio campaign, in which China beat Brazil 3:2 in the quarterfinal and then defeated Serbia 3:1 in the final after losing the first set².

Cast and production

Casting real athletes. Peter Chan initially cast about 12 actresses to play the 1980s players and trained them for two months, then found it impossible: they lacked volleyball players' physique and their movements could not be filmed convincingly, so he replaced them with real athletes, including members of the Tianjin Bohai Bank women's team and college players⁹. Ten of the 12 Olympic gold medalists from China's 2016 Rio team appeared as themselves, including Zhu Ting, Hui Ruoqi, Zhang Changning, and Yuan Xinyue⁹^•⁴. Gong Li prepared for the role of Lang Ping by attending the 2019 FIVB Tokyo volleyball qualification tournament in Beilun, observing the coach and players courtside¹¹.

Chan said he resisted making a Lang Ping biopic: "I can't make a Lang Ping biopic because Chinese women's volleyball is too big for the audience of China to get into a story about one person," while acknowledging that Lang runs through the whole history the film covers⁹. The production used the Zhangzhou and Beilun training bases, which the real team thanked by name after the 2016 Olympic final¹¹.

Release and box office

The film was originally scheduled for the 2020 Spring Festival season but was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it reached cinemas on 25 September 2020, opening the National Day holiday period⁶^•¹². It took in more than 100 million yuan (about $15 million) on its first day and drew over 2 million viewers in that span⁶. On its opening day it held a 53.9 percent share of screenings, with cumulative box office passing 125 million yuan; Maoyan scored it 9.2 and Douban opened at 7.4¹³. Its total later passed 600 million yuan⁷. Commentators noted that the crowded holiday schedule, filled with comedies, cost the film momentum and revenue¹⁴.

Reception and awards

Critical response divided. The South China Morning Post gave the film 3 of 5 stars, calling it technically accomplished and likely to please volleyball fans, but finding that Chan struggled to reconcile a nationalistic blockbuster with a nuanced portrait of Lang Ping³. A Variety review praised the glossy craft and the recreated match sequences, shot with slow motion, symmetrical overheads, and multiple angles, but criticized the film for presenting patriotism as the sole motivating force of its characters¹⁵. Chinese critics were also mixed: some viewers felt the film had drifted into a Lang Ping biography at the expense of the team's collective story⁶, while others praised Gong Li's performance and the film's treatment of the "women's volleyball spirit" (女排精神) across generations¹⁶.

At the 33rd Golden Rooster Awards the film won Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay (Zhang Ji), with nominations for Best Director (Peter Chan), Best Supporting Actor (Wu Gang), Best Cinematography (Zhao Xiaoshi), Best Sound, Best Art Direction, and Best Editing⁸^•⁴. Zhang Ji's screenplay also won the Huabiao Award for Outstanding Screenplay, and the film received Hong Kong Film Award nominations for Best Director, Best Actress (Gong Li), and Best Supporting Actress (Lydia Bai)⁸^•¹⁷. It was selected as China's entry for the 2021 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film⁹.

Controversy before release

The road to release was troubled. A meritorious former coach objected to the film and demanded the deletion of all plot material about him, reportedly because he felt the dramatization was too sensationalist; scenes about him were cut, and the film was retitled from China Women's Volleyball Team to Leap⁷^•¹⁸. As a result, figures such as Chen Zhonghe and the 1980s head coach Yuan Weimin are largely sidelined, and the other coaches' characters are not even named in the film¹⁸. Screenwriter Zhang Ji defended the choices, saying that no single match or character could encapsulate the whole of Chinese women's volleyball within the running time¹⁸.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2020 to 2022

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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