Linsanity, Evan Jackson Leong’s documentary about Asian American basketball phenom Jeremy Lin, will make its Taiwanese theatrical debut October 11th of this year, which follows the October 4th U.S. release date set a few weeks ago.
The film premiered at Sundance and was also selected to play at this year’s South by Southwest. After the announcement of the U.S. release date, many from Taiwan were hoping they would also get a chance to see the story of Lin, who is of Taiwanese descent. Now, they’ve got their wish.
While Lin was born in America, both his parents emigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan in the 1970s. The film follows Lin from his childhood in Palo Alto, California through his meteoric rise to stardom with the New York Knicks during the 2012 NBA season. Leong began filming in 2010, a season when Lin’s numbers (2.6 points per game, 1.4 assists per game) were anything but spectacular. As is the case with most memorable sports stories, things fell into place in the perfect way for a compelling story.
There’s no denying that a big part of this sort of sports documentary is luck, whether it be for a book or for a film. For every Moneyball or Running With The Buffaloes where the team has wild success while being followed by someone hoping for a story, there must be hundreds of times where there’s just a lot of film or a lot of ink wasted on a mediocre season that no one is going to care about. Luckily for Leong, and for us, Lin blew up at just the right time, faster than almost any player ever.
Most reviews of the film are extremely positive so far, so it’s great that people in Taiwan will have a chance to see it, especially considering Lin is the first player of Taiwanese descent to ever play in the NBA.
Details about specific Asian theaters and other release dates for Linsanity will be announced shortly. There’s also word that an Asian pay-TV deal has been struck, but details about that are still unknown.
