Shaolin Soccer (Extended Version)

After a lengthy hiatus - well a year in HK filmdom is a long time - $$ID=Stephen Chow$$ returns with this excellent mix of pop culture that seems so much a match for each other you'd wonder why no one else ever thought of it in the first place. Yes, that's soccer and Shaolin Kung Fu!

Well that's exaggerated a little, there was $$ID=Yuen Biao$$'s action-packed outing in "&&ID=V2592||Name=The Champions&&" but not much else one can think of. Taking the helm as director (with $$ID=Ching Siu Tung$$ as action choreographer), Stephen takes his well known affection for $$ID=Bruce Lee$$ (he is honorary chairman of the official Bruce Lee Fan Club) and sundry Kung Fu poses, fuses it with the Shaolin brand and the most watched sport in the world and ends up with an entertaining mix that is sure to please both martial arts and comedy fans.

Sing (Stephen Chow) is a Shaolin disciple charged with the cause of promoting Shaolin Kung Fu to the world. But modern day capitalist Shanghai finds no use for his martial arts and he is but another penniless street urchin with a dream. Ditto for his fellow disciples each specializing in lethal fighting skills near extinction due to the lack of practice and the economic demands of a workaday world. Enter frequent accomplice-in-laughs $$ID=Ng Mang Tat$$ as Fung a one-time soccer star with a "Golden Right Leg", now a limp as the result of a sabotage job by teammate Hung ($$ID=Patrick Tse$$, diabolically slimy in a campy way - think a cross between George Hamilton and Liberace) who has in his place, gone on to fame and fortune as head honcho of the National Soccer Champions. He discovers Sing's lethal kicking prowess - an unsuspecting soft-drink can kicked from miles afar is embedded in a distant wall which is shattered by the inner strength of the blow - which he feels is ideal for an attacker and enlists his help. Sing assembles his fellow disciples - Kung Fu experts in the "iron head", "body levitation", "iron body", "hurricane leg", and "ghostly hand" techniques - equally disillusioned with life, to fill the key posts of midfielders, defender, winger and goalkeeper respectively. Together, this motley crew enter the Super National Soccer Championship as the Shaolin Soccer Team and rise to the occasion, reaching the finals much to common disbelief, only to encounter Hung and his Evil Team of steroid boosted, invincible cyborg players.

It's a simple formulaic feel good plot handled with aplomb by perennial jokester Stephen Chow who hams up his Bruce Lee and Kung Fu idol affectations to the max. The mythical Shaolin arts are exploited fully and explosively with an unsuspected updated spin on the soccer pitch with much special effects help - Stephen is no Kung Fu master although one is quite surprised to see him toned and with a six pack in full Bruce regalia. His penchant in making the dross, gross and downright ugly likeable is evident in the misfits who make up the team - the usual suspects in most of his films. Here, he also does the reverse - making the exquisitely pretty downright grotesque (remember Karen Mok wrinkled and with bug teeth) - doe-eyed soap star $$ID=Vicki Zhao$$ as a zit ridden, pock marked love interest, also a Tai Chi exponent whose skills are translated to bun-making and later to the goal posts in a wayward twist. The over the top slapstick gags are also back and never more effectively - Farelly brothers fans will dig the soccer training scenes with the fatso and his eggs. There is a send up of "Saving Private Ryan" and spunky $$ID=Cecilia Cheung$$ and $$ID=Karen Mok$$ have cameo takes on the Williams sisters as dreadlocked, hirsute attackers of a rival team (footy jerseys never looked this good).

This then is without a doubt, Stephen Chow at his best. Picked up for US release by Miramax, it is likely to be the crossover hit he much deserves. As the protagonist Sing says in a scene, the expansion of Shaolin Kung Fu just takes a bit of creative marketing and repackaging. Perhaps as in this icon of HK cinema's hilarious reworking of popular HK culture.