On screen, Hansen is a man in motion again

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When Rick Hansen returned to Vancouver after more than two years wheeling around the world on his Man in Motion tour, music producer David Foster put his work on hold, and on his own dime hired cameras, a helicopter and a crew to shoot Hansen's triumphant parade through the streets. "It was a spectacular homecoming," Foster said from Tokyo last week, where he was on tour. "There were literally hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets. I'm so glad we got it on film."

That 35mm footage was sealed away in a cold-storage vault in Vancouver, but 23 years later, some of it will finally be seen by the public in a new feature film based on Hansen's story. Heart of a Dragon opens in British Columbia theatres on Friday. Foster, who co-wrote Hansen's theme song St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion), is one of the film's executive producers.

Written, produced and directed by Michael French, the film focuses on a tiny but pivotal slice of Hansen's worldwide tour to raise money and awareness for spinal-cord research: Hansen's struggle to conquer the Great Wall of China in front of the world press, which had finally taken some interest.

In French's script, Hansen (Victor Webster) is exhausted and ill, facing his demons as he faces a steep climb up the wall. In terrible mental and physical shape, he is coaxed and cared for by his crew: his friend Don (Andrew Lee Potts),who was with Hansen when he had the accident that made him a paraplegic; his cousin Lee (Ethan Embry); and his physiotherapist, Amanda (Sarah-Jane Potts), whom he would later marry. Meanwhile, a grizzled, cynical journalist (Jim Byrnes), who is dispatched to the Great Wall to document the journey, raises the ire of the entire team by questioning Hansen's talent and motives.

"People tried for years to tell the story," French said during a recent interview in Vancouver, where he lives. "And I think the problem was: How do you tell something this big?"

Added Byrnes: "[The tour lasted]two years, two months and two days, and our film [takes place over]two days. It's like Christ in the garden. It's the moment of doubt, it's the moment of darkness." Byrnes himself lost his legs in an accident almost 30 years ago and walks on artificial limbs, using a cane.

The film has undergone an epic journey of its own. French's involvement with this story goes back to 1986 when he filmed Hansen in China, and ultimately made a documentary about it called Heart of a Dragon. As he tells it: Hollywood producer Sherry Lansing saw the documentary, and when she was in Vancouver making The Accused, she bought the rights for the story. When she became head of Paramount, she hired French and producer Mark Gordon ( Saving Private Ryan) for the project and they commissioned a script.

But French says they delivered a story he simply couldn't make - focusing on the dark side of the athlete and his troubled youth. "How did that relate to this man who inspired so many of us?" he asks. "While there has to be an edge - we understand that - we just couldn't go down that road.

"It was just not the story that we knew of the guy that we knew. It would do a big disservice to Rick."

Seventeen rewrites later, French wound up making the film independently, with Gordon serving as co-executive producer - and with Hansen's blessing. French is distributing it on his own, too. The final budget stands at about $10-million, about half of that in deferred fees - a far cry from the $75-million (U.S.) ("and going north" French says) that Paramount was considering.

"You've got to hand it to Michael French," Foster said. "The guy has moved mountains to make this happen and he just never took no for an answer. … He was going to make this film."

The film was shot on location in 2006 in Beijing and on the Great Wall, a decision that meant severe logistical and bureaucratic complications. French waded through a lot of red tape to ensure that the film receive approval from the Chinese government. "There was no way we were going to go to all of this effort if this thing could not be shown in China," he says.

The remote location also proved challenging. There were strong winds coming off the Mongolian desert, and short shooting days in winter required the crew to hike up to the Wall at night so they could be there at first light.

Among the more powerful moments of the film is that footage Foster had shot all those years ago showing Hansen wheeling across Vancouver's Cambie Street Bridge. It's accompanied by a new, stripped-down version of St. Elmo's Fire performed by Michael Johns (of American Idol fame).

It cost Foster $65,000 to film Hansen's homecoming in 1987, and he spent some $6,000 over the years keeping it properly stored. Now he just hopes people will see the film.

"Rick's journey and his endeavours are sort of unparalleled," Foster said. "It makes you feel inadequate when you think about what he did."