Shaolin Soccer (2001)

Stephen Chow is Sing, a street cleaner with high hopes for Shaolin kung-fu -- he sees everyday applications for the martial arts and is keen to bring them to the world. Finding the right means to promote his beloved kung-fu, however, is no easy task. When singing and dancing proves a fruitless pitch, Sing strikes gold with the help of former football ace and aspiring coach "Golden Leg" Fung (Ng).

Crippled in an on-field assault decades earlier, Fung's now living on the streets after years serving former teammate Hung (Tse) since a match-fixing incident. Having found out Hung's involvement in breaking his famous leg, Fung's ready to set up a team to take on his rival's Evil Team. Sing picks up on the kung-fu promotion value in premier league football, and his martial arts skills and powerhouse kicks are a great start for a team. Soon Sing rounds up his Shaolin kung-fu ace mates to bring up the numbers. With a football team boasting the physical prowess of the Empty Hand, Iron Shirt, Hooking Leg and Weight Vest skills, and a healthy greed for winning, the gang go head-to-head with Hung's Evil Team in the championship arena.

Pairing kung-fu and football makes for lively viewing on the big screen thanks to a stunning combination of computer animation with the charms of large-scale wirework. Bringing together the technologies makes for unprecedented and deftly executed visual concepts, as thoroughly off-kilter as martial arts-driven ball play should be and fuelling an exciting style of its own. And it's action that easily warrants a second viewing just to appreciate all the more.

Off the field and away from all the superhuman kicks and fireballs, Shaolin Soccer is a more patchy affair. Comedy clicks in enjoyable skits throughout the film, and the ragtag team of less-than-sporty footballers is fun to watch throughout. Like the animation work, comic highlights were worth revisiting a second time even if some colder humour doesn't hit the mark either time around. Stephen Chow is clearly in good form on screen and, considering credits outside acting for this film, shows enthusiasm for the project and even includes nods to Bruce Lee and older local films. Ng Man-tat puts in a memorable turn as the coach. Outside the team, actors and their sequences seem somewhat distanced from each other, not least with Vicky Zhao's character Mui. Central to the stadium finale as well as showing intriguing tai chi breadmaking skills and interesting body image issues, the Mui character is nonetheless marginal and underdeveloped. Vincent Kok, Cecilia Cheung, Karen Mok and newcomer Sardonar Li provide some quick cameo appearances.

Production work is consistently attractive throughout, kicking off with a catchy and simple opening animation and featuring a nifty pair of sequences to start and close the film. Location work is interesting, with the filmmakers creating an unidentified city from shoots in Shanghai and Zhuhai, with Cantonese mainly spoken throughout. Worth noting is that Shaolin Soccer has been released in two versions in Hong Kong, with a longer cut replacing existing prints about three weeks into the screening schedule and before heavy competition arrives in August. I found the second version preferable, thanks to its inclusion of footage that should have been placed in the original release, with more from Vicky Zhao and a better lead-up to a themed karaoke session. But regardless of different running times, Stephen Chow has scored a distinctive winner for Hong Kong's cinemagoers with Shaolin Soccer's concept and execution.

Above: Shaolin Soccer's mouldy printed billboard at Kwun Tong's Life Theatre.

Credits:

Produced and directed by Stephen Chow Sing-chi
Executive director: Lee Lik-chee
Script by Stephen Chow Sing-chi and Tsang Kan-cheung
Starring Stephen Chow Sing-chi, Ng Man-tat, Vicky Zhou Wei and Patrick Tse Yin.