SHAOLIN SOCCER: MANAGES TO SCORE WITH SOME FANCY TRICKS,
A FEW SLICK MOVES AND GOOFY CHUCKLES
Seated at an advance screening of Shaolin Soccer, I overheard two fellow critics prior to the film's start, engaged in conversation about what they were expecting to see. The gist of it went something like this: "I guess you really have to be in a particular frame of mind to see a film like this; you know, like for Kung Pow," said one critic to his colleague. The fellow reviewer then responded, "And what would that be?" "Blank," quipped back the critic. So as not to feel out of step, I flicked my brain to tabla rasa mode ("blank slate" to all you Latin phobes) and began my 87-minute odyssey through the worlds of Kung Fu, soccer and comedy, Hong Kong-style.
So what did I learn? Mainly that Shaolin Soccer, despite some unevenness and awkwardness, can chalk up a victory for nonsensical comedy that has no pretensions beyond a simple, uplifting story that tries to make you laugh, laced with plenty of decent Matrix-esque special effects.
Shaolin Soccer is the latest satire from the film's prodigious writer-director-star, Steven Chow. Though the film is slated for release by Miramax Films to American audiences on or around August 8th, the film had debuted in Hong Kong in the summer 2001, where it broke all box office records to make it the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong cinema history, and received a joss house of awards, including "Best Film," "Best Director," "Best Young Director," "Best Actor," "Best Supporting Actor" and "Best Visual Effects" at the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards. So what's it about?
Glad I asked. Shaolin Soccer tells the story of a once-supreme soccer player named Fung (Ng Man-tat) nicknamed "Golden Leg," who during the Chinese national championship twenty years earlier, missed a pivotal goal, enraging the soccer fans (as they sometimes get – okay, always get) to hurtle onto the field and break Fung's golden leg. Twenty years later, he is a gimpy shell of a man, hauling equipment for his former teammate Hung (Patrick Tse) and now manager of China's best soccer squad known as "Team Evil." After he's fired, Fung meets Sing (Steven Chow), a Shaolin monk with superior martial arts skills who possesses a "Mighty Iron Leg" but presently ekes out a living collecting garbage and scrap metal. Sing is an optimist who revels in dreams of a world gone Shaolin, where the smallest problem can be overcome with Shaolin practice. When Fung sees Sing handily dispatch a bunch of thugs using Shaolin tactics, the pair hatch a plan to form a Shaolin soccer team, with Fung as coach and mentor.
Sing then proceeds to draft his former Shoalin temple classmates to join the team, but what he finds is less than promising. His comrades have all gone to pot, ranging from an officious businessman and a street hustler working out of a public toilet to a 300-lb. grocery store worker and a chain-smoking busboy. At first, the reluctant quintet and Sing are so inept that My Left Foot's Christy Brown and five of his clones could trounce the motley crew. But under Fung's guidance and Sing's encouragement, the five recruits summon their Shoalin powers, and each has a special talent, from lightning-quick reflexes and floating on air to an iron head and stomach muscles with cannon thrust. Soon, the team gains acclaim, becomes a media sensation and is slated to play "Team Evil" for the Chinese national championship.
Along the way, a romance begins to bloom between Sing and a bun baker, Mui (Vicki Zhao), who is so homely that flies buzz around her instead of her sweet rolls (I'm not kidding). But Mui also is a Kung Fu master, which attracts Sing to her spiritually. He showers her with kindness and encouragement but doesn't reciprocate her growing affection for him, as he is preoccupied with his fledgling team and wants to be just friends.
During the climactic match with Team Evil, the Shaolin team is stonewalled at every corner by Team Evil's underhanded trickery, despite their Shaolin prowess. But when all seems lost, the Shaolins muster enough spiritual resolve and grit, with some assistance by Mui (who after an obligatory Act III trip to a cosmetician and dress shop is transformed into a Hong Kong hottie) to even the field and make it a match that Team Evil (and the fans) will never forget.
Shaolin Soccer has some drawbacks but to a degree, they inadvertently work to its advantage for a comedy of this type. The plotline is a hair thicker than a scallion pancake, but does have a logical sense of structure and build-up, with requisite sentiment thrown in at the right emotional points. But the main goal for Shaolin Soccer (sorry about that) is to provoke laughs any way it can. Chow, known as the "Jim Carrey of Asia" is regarded as the founder of a Hong-Kong style comedy genre known as "mo lei tau," or "nonsense comedy." And Shaolin Soccer is just that, but the results are mixed. A good number of gags don't work as intended and come off as childish or amateurish, like a drunken uncle begging his eight-year-old nephew to pull his finger. Fast motion, farting, potato chip crumbs stuck to a fat man's mouth, salty sweat licked off someone's face and the like face pop up throughout the film. Some humor tries to be extracted by the simple, incessant cackling of a minor character, but funny on a gut level in a few spots.
But there's a faint sense of sincerity in Chow's attempts to entertain his audience, even at this base level, that somehow has you overlook it overall. True, the ungainly Shaolin soccer players are requisitely hapless and helpless victims at first, but triumph in the end. Sing finally falls in love with the comely, formerly homely, love interest. Fung regains his self-respect and adoration of his former fans. And slimy villain Hung gets his comeuppance before the credit scrolls. The lack of Hollywood slickness also works to the film's advantage to give it an "underdog" appeal in trying its best to create a comic arena. The use of dubbing in English dialogue that is oft-times out of synch with actor's visual enunciation of lines results in chuckles, which maybe intended by Chow, since he is a fan of Bruce Lee films and knows the reputation of these films' poorly dubbed dialogue for English-speaking audiences. Chow himself does have a charm and has a slight resemblance to Bruce Lee that can draw you in and hold you, especially when coupled with the enthusiasm he exerts and his physicality that's virtually non-stop. Other grab bags of comedy range from breaking the "fourth wall" by some actors suddenly breaking into song, only for a character coming into frame and telling them to shut-up, upon which the ensemble instantly stops and goes back to their routine. But the real wow of Chow (sorry again) in Shaolin Soccer are the special effects he uses in displaying some of the better elements of humor. Soccer balls exploding into fiery comets, flaming tigers or spiked orbs that tear up the playing field, or soccer balls kicked with such force they propel goalies out of their net or burst through stone walls, all in 'bullet time' that tracks the voracious velocity of the action itself. Other effects-laden gags range from a young lady parallel parking her car by side kicking it with Shaolin might to neatly fit into her space, or slipping on a banana and regaining composure with Kung Fu flips, or ionosphere-bound leaps that defy gravity. And for the most part, these gags do pay off. But in more realistic moments, a few gags reluctantly work, such as Sing trying to swat flies around Mui's face and her asking with intent, "Did you get them all?" "Got one," replies Sing. "Good," assesses Mui.
While some verbal wit does work, a good measure just misses the mark or incites chuckles at best. But by and large, Chow has crafted a comedy that should be applauded at least for its desire to entertain and not be considered anything more than 87 minutes of diversion that has a slight endearment for its intentions and for wanting its audience to leave smiling at the end of it all. After the film ended, I left the theater. Smiling.
First Published at WriteMovies.com.
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Shaolin Soccer at IMDB.com.