Shaolin Soccer (2001) Review

After initially intending to release a dubbed version of Stephen Chow's 2001 Cantonese slapstick comedy smash, Miramax comes to its senses and reverts to subtitles.

Are North American audiences ready for another foreign film centered around soccer after the breakout UK hit Bend It Like Beckham? More importantly, can a goofy premise peppered with numerous inside references to the kung fu and Hong Kong action film genres attract female moviegoers? The answers to these questions are, respectively, maybe and not likely.

Still, that doesn't mean that the sizeable male population of martial arts fans and disappointed Matrix Revolutions ticket buyers won't turn this film into a modest word-of-mouth hit, even if they have to wait until it lands on DVD. Indeed, several overseas film fans recently agreed on an IMDB discussion board that Siu lam juk kau, a.k.a. Shaolin Soccer, was better than even the middle entry in the Matrix trilogy.

The film's director, co-writer, co-producer and star, Stephen Chow, has been variously referred to as Hong Kong's equivalent to Jim Carrey and a softer, cuddlier reflection of Jackie Chan. There's certainly no denying his success in the Far East - he's made over fifty films and five of them, led by Shaolin Soccer's astounding $60 million local box office take, are among the ten highest grossing Hong Kong movies of all time.

As the impoverished Shaolin Temple monk who rounds up a group of fallen martial arts masters andreshapes them into the Harlem Globetrotters of the professional Asian soccer world, Chow is undeniably charismatic. Despite more than 400 visual effects from Hong Kong's leading CGI shop, Centro Digital Pictures, the film's narrative manages to retain a sweet-natured feel.

Joining Chow, a.k.a. "Mighty Iron Leg", on the team are Fung (Ng Man-tat), a former soccer star reduced to working as an equipment boy for evil-minded superstar Hung (Patrick Tse), Mui (Vicki Zhao), an acne-scarred waif who makes a mean tray of sweet bakery buns, and various other down and out denizens.

At a preview screening in the Los Angeles Miramax theater featured so prominently in the second season of the HBO series Project Greenlight, two young men sitting directly behind me were in hysterics the entire film, luxuriating in the stream of inside references to Bruce Lee, classic kung fu films and Japanese anime. This pair, without a doubt, represents the film's core audience.

Chow seems to embrace the same kind of giddy on-set mood as Adam Sandler. Among his principal cast of soccer playing fools for example are his own scriptwriter, production manager and dance choreographer, who was promoted to the role of team goalie by Chow after helping map out a Michael Jackson music video spoof that appears in the film.

Along with elaborate visual effects, there is a tremendous amount of fluid wire work that also helps drive the film's stunts, orchestrated by Ching Siu-Teng, who has directed films such as A Chinese Ghost Story, The Killer and The Duel. But as Chow himself has admitted, although he had the idea for Shaolin Soccer many years ago, he felt he had to wait for the art of CGI to catch up with the specifics of his cinematic vision.

The crazy quilted nature of the Shaolin Soccer filmmaking team is in many ways a dynamic reflection of Hong Kong's rather unique movie theater landscape. Films are shown well past midnight throughout the week and often include not just first-run features but also old black and white Cantonese classics from the 1940s and 1950s. Hong Kong continues to be a populist moviegoer's paradise.

As Shaolin Soccer has wound its way from the Far East to first run and DVD release in Europe, perhaps the most intriguing dubbing strategy was that of an Italian distributor, who enlisted local professional soccer players such as Damiano Tommasi, Vincent Candela, Marco Delvecchio to provide the voiceovers. For its US release, Chow has seen Miramax trim the film's Hong Kong running time from 102 minutes to 87 minutes.

Ultimately, the movie that comes to mind when watching Shaolin Soccer is The Absent Minded Professor, the 1961 Disney comedy starring Fred McMurray that was remade some years ago with Robin Williams under the title Flubber. It's got the same kind of goofy, innocent appeal and, as such, would have ironically provided a perfect father-son matinee outing in its dubbed form. As it is, dads are going to have to sneak away on their own to catch this one.