Never Say Never

Never Say Never (2023) is a Chinese sports drama you can watch online on iFILM — written, directed by, and starring Wang Baoqiang. The original title, 八角笼中 (Eight-Angle Cage), points directly to the MMA ring where the story is set.

Xiang Tenhui, a former fighting champion, runs an off-the-books martial arts school for orphaned kids from remote Sichuan villages. No licences, no subsidies, no safety net — just training that might be their only path out of poverty. Then old footage surfaces: brutal highlight reels that make the whole operation look like exploitation. Public outrage arrives fast, and the children's futures end up in the hands of people who have never met them.

Wang Baoqiang delivered one of China's biggest domestic hits of summer 2023 with this. The fight sequences are real and hit hard, but the film's actual argument is about who gets to decide the fate of children no one else bothered with. Stream Never Say Never (2023) online on iFILM.