[3][4] Sun Yu made a series of films featuring the image of "bonny girls", which not only entertained the audiences at the time, but advocated the spirit of "sports saving the nation" in the social and political context of 1930s' China.
[6] By the end of the film, after the death of a classmate, Xiao Qiuhua (Bai Lu), due to overexertion, Lin Ying decides that the pursuit of individual glory is wrong.
[10] The studio was made under the auspices of the top-tiered politicians, ideologues, and financiers of the Kuomintang for the purpose of making educational films that would promulgate the Party's sociopolitical values, which are understood as being right-wing.
Throughout the 1930s, Chinese filmmaking was strongly influenced by the perceived Hollywood's melodramatic cinematic style, which was characterized by scandal, sexual promiscuity, and drug addiction.
Sun Yu was one of the first leftist filmmakers who attempted to explore the idea of spiritual pollution with Sports Queen in 1934, which was also produced under the political influence of Xia Yan's small Communist film group in Shanghai.
For example, the film took two minutes focusing on personal hygiene issues: Lin Ying and her teammates get up in the morning and do gymnastics on their canvas beds before brushing their teeth.
Fan magazines confirmed Li Lili's athletic skills outside of the film screen with photos of her in sports attire, posing with her school basketball team or alone on a running track.
[16] Li Daoxin, a professor at Peking University, presented a speech on China Central Television, which used Sports Queen to discuss the meaning of true sportsmanship (lit.
[18] When Yun Peng, Lin Ying's mentor and coach, teaches his female students, he states that "[t]rue sportsmanship is the need for balanced improvements of every single person's physique, the need to spread [this value] among society..." and that "it is definitely not to create individual heroes", expressing that prioritizing the widespread popularization of sports over individual competitive success is the definition of the so-called true sportsmanship.
[19] In her last moments, Xiao Qiuhua said to Lin Ying, "Though I am an athlete, I do not possess true sportsmanship, because physical exercise should be for strengthening the body, for us to be more healthy and lead happier lives, but instead I placed too much importance in reputation and thus it has led to consequences today."
[21] Li Lili's persona as a patriotic modern youth in Sports Queen is profoundly different from that of a fallen woman which Ruan Lingyu represented in her popular films such as The Goddess and New Women.
In Sports Queen, Li Lili's distinctively female physicality shown in the camera's focus on her body greatly departs from the clichéd image of the fallen woman that Ruan Lingyu typically exhibits in her masterpieces, who usually uses cosmetics and even self-commodification to enhance her sexual appeal.
[8] The cartoon magazine Modern Sketch used images inspired by the film in their publications, such as pictures of "Li crouching at the starting line and running among a group of strong and tough girls.
[8] The popular photography pictorial Liangyou Huabao used similar sporty images of Li Lili from Sports Queen to support the film's message of tiyu (physical education).
In athletic competition, the winners do not have to be overjoyed, and the losers do not have to cry, because they are both actors who perform in front of the masses to show them that physical health is the true meaning of tiyu.
Every athlete should firmly remember: the ultimate goal of tiyu is to cultivate healthy bodies in order to contribute to the greatest work for the happiness of mankind, not a gold spear or a silk banner.