People would hardly resist "Bang! Shao Nian"(aka "Tough Out") because it's so authentic, with kid baseball players originally from orphanages or poor families to be trained at a charity baseball base in the suburbs of Beijing. These kids learn to face up to life's difficulties that they are born with, and to try to deal with them positively through the fun and challenges playing baseball, with the help of the baseball team, their coaches and fellow kid players. Their baseball base, too, have been experiencing difficulties over recent years. Following MA Hu and Xiaoshuang, the team's two players with the most distinct character and varied potential, we see how their daily trainings and a baseball match invitation from the world's No.1 baseball country could possibly transform the kids on their way growing into adult baseball players. The documentary rings a bell, though. "A Way Out", a 2017 documentary that (for six years) follows three young Chinese of different social class, different regions and different mindsets into their adult lives, reveals an even crueler part of the social reality in modern-day China. Let us look forward to the upcoming "Tough Out" docu-series online, and laugh and cry, and be inspired again by these baseball kids.
Review of Tough Out
