Anson (left) and Hugh Hartford will be showing their film about elderly ping-pong players at various Olympic venues. Cecily LIu / China Daily

Eighty-four-year-old Sun Lao gracefully put down his paddle after missing the swerving ball.

"Losing is an honor. I'm glad that I came. Although I lost, I learned how Westerners play," he said, smiling into the camera.

Sun is one of eight veteran table-tennis players who star in a new documentary, Ping Pong, which follows the over-80 category at the 2010 world table tennis championships in Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Made by British directors Hugh and Anson Hartford, the film is a part of Britain's Cultural Olympiad - a four-year program of Olympic- and Paralympic-related arts events Britain spent more than 97 million pounds ($144 million) to stage since 2008.

It will be shown at special screening sessions in eight Olympic venues this summer, at which ping-pong equipment will be provided for the public.

But Ping Pong is not just another sportsmanship-themed movie in an Olympic year. The close attention paid to each of the subjects challenges popular generalization of older people, and explores the link between death and sports through humor.

"It's about age and about life, really," Anson said. "As you get old, your body gets a battering, and your mind takes a battering. Ping-pong keeps you engaged with life."

The characters' personalities stood out. Terry Donlon, 82, nearly died at the age of 14 from tuberculosis. Later, he had both his prostrate and kidney removed due to cancer, and now he has only 40 percent of his lung capacity. Still, he never quit playing.

Lisa Modlich, 86, resembles the typical American girl with lipstick and permed hair, who doesn't forget to put on nail polishes even when going to the sports stadium. Ursula Bihl, a 90-year-old German, says she would much rather die at a ping-pong table than in a nursing home.

The film took the Hatford brothers on their first China trip.

"It was amazing the old buildings in Beijing and the wild grass land in Inner Mongolia, they were beautiful," said Hugh.

Anson added that China was a lucky choice of location for the film.

"There is this reverence for table tennis, which is a country-level sport," he said. "It also seems to be a cultural thing in China that the elderly are held in respect."

Dorothy De Low, a 101-year-old Australian, spent more than three hours in the stadium taking photos and signing autographs for her Chinese fans.

Anson said the biggest challenge was filming so many simultaneous rounds of the tournament with a team of four the two brothers, a sound specialist and a translator. As they did not know who would enter the finals, they followed 16 players initially.

Filming the Western players started months ahead of the tournament, but finding a Chinese player was not so easy.

"We arrived in Inner Mongolia a week before to speak to the organizers, found out who had entered. And if they were in the right age and were already there, we went to meet them," Anson said.

They met six Chinese players and filmed them all. During the competition Sun emerged as a star.

"He didn't do so well in the competition, but he had a positive attitude, and we connected with him the most," Anson said.

After the competition, Anson and Hugh traveled with Sun to his home city, Hulunbuir, in northeastern Inner Mongolia. A former tobacco farmer, Sun is now looked after by his daughters and has "a very good life".

At his home, he shows off a bottle of gochi berry, astragali root and ginseng.

"These are secrets to make me healthy," he said.

His daughters want him to cut back on smoking and drinking. But he insists frequent socializing keeps him alive.

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/26/2012 page12)