Dir.
Stephen Chow, 2001, Hong Kong, 87 mins
Cast:
Stephen Chow, Vicki Zhao
Three years after its record breaking release in Hong Kong, the most successful home grown movie ever (HK$60 million at the local box office) arrives belatedly at UK cinemas.
A film with much to live up to - featuring, as it does, the collision of the West (football) and the East (Kung Fu) as well as being preceded by a laugh out loud trailer and positive underground word of mouth.
The story follows an ex-soccer player Golden Leg Fung (Ng Man-Tat) who, after a fateful mistake costing his career, meets a Shaolin Kung Fu student (Stephen Chow) trying to spread the word. The ex-soccer player helps reconcile with his five brothers, and teaches them soccer, applying the discipline of Shaolin Kung Fu to their game. Entering a tournament organised by his bitter enemy Hung (Xie Xian) can Fung redeem himself?
Closer in comedic tone to the better films in the Police Academy series, Shaolin Soccer is an amusing knockout romp with no pretension other than to make the audience laugh. The story is wafer thin, the performances consistently broad and unsubtle, and the action slapstick, but when the comedy works it is surprising, silly and delightfully offbeat.
However, the overall tone is ruined by poor editing (a good half an hour was lost in the three years since its Hong Kong premiere) and shoddy dubbing. Whilst it might once have been understandable that a foreign film needed dubbing for a western audience, huge successes like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero have disproved the notion that subtitles are the kiss of death at the box office. Despite the film's star Stephen Chow dubbing his own voice, the audience can never truly engage with the performances.
The poor editing is even more of a problem with the film running shorter than an actual match. With so much clearly removed, this is a disjointed film with many scenes not seeming to flow properly. Despite its brief length it seems to take ages to get to any soccer action without much actually happening in the build up to the first match.
The inevitable love interest subplot is delightful and unconventional playing very much against what might be expected. Vicki Zhao makes for an unusual romantic foil and her scenes are some of the funniest in the film.
When they do arrive, the football scenes are reminiscent of the animated match in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks with knockabout (and often animated) action. Sadly good intentions are foiled by an over reliance on scenes involving wire work on the pitch. Once you have seen one gag involving a character flying through the air in order to intercept a pass then the joke is over. Unfortunately the same idea is repeated far too often, diluting an amusing novelty until it quickly becomes tedious and stale.
Shaolin Soccer could easily have been an excellent and diverting Saturday night comedy. Sadly, the changes (presumably enforced by distributors Miramax) have damaged the film for Western audiences. Is it too late to appeal for extra time on the DVD?
Jonathan Wilkins
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