''The Year of the Yao'' is a 2004 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

based on

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player

Yao Ming Yao Ming (; born September 12, 1980) is a Chinese basketball executive and former professional player. He played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Associat ...

's first year in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The film is narrated by his friend and former interpreter Colin Pine, who stayed with Yao during Yao's rookie year, and interpreted for him for three years. The film made its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on September 16, 2004, and was theatrically released by

Fine Line Features Fine Line Features (often spelled as FineLine Features) was the specialty films division of New Line Cinema. From 1991 to 2005, under founder and president Ira Deutchman, Fine Line acquired, distributed and marketed films of a more "indie" flavor ...

in the United States on April 15, 2005. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.

Reception

Box office

''The Year of the Yao'' had a limited theatrical release in the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. The film grossed $38,585 during its theatrical run.

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 6.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This sports bio documentary is given a few fresh angles, including culture clash issues, and the friendship that develops between Yao and his interpreter." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a score of 62 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

References

External links

Official site
* 2004 films 2000s English-language films 2000s Mandarin-language films Films scored by James L. Venable Documentary films about sportspeople Documentary films about basketball American basketball films Houston Rockets Films shot in Houston Films directed by Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern 2000s American films {{Sport-documentary-film-stub