“Sight” is a pleasantly bland bio-pic about the Chinese-born surgeon who came up with a treatment that has restored the sight of millions around the world.

Dr. Ming Wang’s story, growing up during the unrest in the last years of China’s Cultural Revolution, battling anti-education/anti-intellectualism at home, prejudice and limited resources in college in the United States, only to become one of the most celebrated people in his field, is the stuff of many an uplifting biography or autobiography.

It’s rather blandly-handled in this somewhat old-fashioned bio-pic, with the big twist in the story having to do with not just what drives someone, but how one takes inspiration from failure.

Director and co-writer Andrew Hyatt did “Paul, Apostle of Christ” and that “Duck Dynasty” biopic “The Blind.” He’s not out of is element, but not having a hard “faith-based” message to anchor the picture causes his movie to drift by, never unpleasant, but not particularly compelling either.

Ming Wang (Terry Chen) is a press-conference-after-surgery-famous Nashville eye surgeon known for restoring sight to “impossible” cases, and noted for his worldwide philanthropy — accepting cases from the young and the blind, or their advocates, from all over the world.

An Indian child (Mia Swamination) becomes a great test for him. Blinded by her mother to give her an edge begging in her corner of Calcutta, Dr. Wang’s skills, invention, and that of his colleague, Dr. Mischa Bartnovsky (Greg Kinnear) are pushed to their limits with this case.

That causes the obsessed surgeon to hallucinate a tween girl from China back into his life. That leads to flashbacks, a crisis in confidence and confiding in a pretty Chinese-American bartender (Danni Wang) as he struggles to remember why he’s driven to do this, and to find a way around the damage this little girl suffered to her eyes.

We see Ming’s 1970s Chinese childhood — Jayden Zhang and Ben Wang play younger versions of him — a doctor’s son growing up in Mao’s People’s Republic, facing assaults on his school, his person and his adored childhood friend, Lili (Sara Ye), whose grandfather happens to be blind.

Bits of Wang’s back story are filtered into his present day dilemma as we learn the trauma of his youth, the fate of those who knew him and his roundabout path to America, college and success.

Hewing to what we can assume is pretty close to the truth doesn’t rob the film of its drama. But the lack of highs and lows become a real issue as tiny conflicts are blown out of proportion and the big one — dealing with the anti-education “uprising” of the Cultural Revolution — is watered-down to a frustrating degree.

The “true” story seems more compelling than how it is presented on screen. The picture’s old-fashioned nature suggest we’d get more conventionally “Hollywood” triumphs and turnabouts than are served up here.

Chen is stoic in the lead role, and Kinnear — “faith-based” is kind of his brand now — is reliably supportive in a co-starring role.

But there’s little sizzle to any of this. The performances are flat, top to bottom and the script struggles to wrong pathos out of even the saddest plot elements.

We’re all heroes of our own story, and Dr. Wang’s took a more trying journey than most, or so the film suggests. Overfamiliarity with this sort of immigrant’s journey and the tentative nature of the storytelling — even keeping the “faith-based” elements at arm’s length (Fionnula Flanagan plays the nun who brings the Indian child to America) — mute the impact of “Sight,” which is a shame.

Even the Chinese sequences (in Chinese with English subtitles) have their edges rubbed-off as the script goes to some pains to avoid criticizing the government there, past or present. Lacking that edge, any “miracle of faith” or a story arc with obvious ups and downs, “Sight” fails to move, with only the closing credits — showing the real Wang’s achievements — coming anywhere near to living up to what we’re assured, in the opening credits, is “an incredible true story.”

Rating: PG-13, violence

Cast: Terry Chen, Greg Kinnear, Ben Wang, Danni Wang and Fionnula Flanagan,

Credits: Directed by Andrew Hyatt, scripted by Andrew Hyatt, John Duigan and Buzz McLaughlin, based on the autobiography of Dr. Ming Wang. An Angel Studios release.

Running time: 1:42