In it, he plays Sing, a chronic optimist despite looking like a homeless man. Actor/director Stephen Chow manages to channel Jackie Chan and Jim Carrey goofiness and make a done-to-death genre hilarious again with this movie. WITH: Stephen Chow (Sing), Vicki Zhao (Mui), Ng Man Tat (Fung), Patrick Tse Yin (Hung) and Yut Fei Wong (Iron Head).Parodies of The Matrix are commonplace these days, taking all the fun out of them. Chow and Tsang Kan Cheung directors of photography, Ting Wo Kwong and Pak Huen Kwen edited by Kit-Wai Kai music by Raymond Wong action choreographer, Ching Siu Tung art director, Kim Hung Ho produced by Yeung Kwok Fai released by Miramax Films. It has mindless comic violence, the barest intimations of sexuality and some language no worse than what's heard at the concession stands.ĭirected by Stephen Chow written (in Cantonese, with English subtitles) by Mr. ''Shaolin Soccer'' is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Chow - and Miramax - should hope no one tests ''Shaolin Soccer'' for steroids. The movie is too much fun to take seriously, or ignore, though you leave the theater musing that if Miramax held on to the movie any longer, it could have been converted into ''Shaolin N.F.L.'' As it is, the picture is so juiced up Mr. As Hung watches his superpowered team whack Sing and his squad around, he snickers, ''Those American drugs work better than I expected.''
The closest thing to ballast is supplied by musical numbers - a throwdown staged to Kool and the Gang's ''Celebration'' and an unholy marriage of what sounds like Carl Douglas and Kid 'n' Play over the end credits - and the kind of head-tossed-back, whinnying laughter from the bad guys that even Mack Sennett finally dismissed as too primitive.īesides emphasizing Hung's resemblance - with his lacquered hair and Alain Mikli sunglasses - to the bon vivant producer Robert Evans, the final showdown with Team Evil puts Sing and his Shaolin brothers through one last ordeal. The movie is crammed with pastiche, paying tribute to Sergio Leone westerns, 1970's bad-hair musicals and Bruce Lee (one of Sing's brothers, the goalie, is done up like Lee in ''Game of Death,'' a pose that's becoming a Miramax standby if you include ''Kill Bill''). Eventually Sing is reunited with his brothers after Fung convinces them to use their kung fu skills to play soccer. Iron Head (Yut Fei Wong) has a bottle broken over his head in a restroom after botching his janitorial duties. The ritual humiliations that Sing and his ad hoc family are subjected to are so laughably brutal they could have been lifted from ''Down and Dirty Pictures,'' Peter Biskind's book detailing Miramax employees' suffering. Of course, the tattoo is in English, which probably helps Fung start conversations with Americans wandering the streets with Chinese-English dictionaries.
The remnants of Fung's football career are a limp and the ''Golden Leg'' tattoo on his Buddha belly. Years earlier Fung - once known as Golden Leg for his soccer skills - was disabled by his teammate Hung (Patrick Tse Yin), who now owns Team Evil. While denting brick walls with kicked rubbish, Sing is discovered by Fung (Ng Man Tat), another spiritual resident of the Island of Misfit Toys.
To compensate, new music and English-language signs and graphics have been added, so the film seems to take place in an even odder world than most Hong Kong action epics. Miramax bought it, tricked it up with new, simplified subtitles and scissored nearly half an hour of jagged subplots and brawling that might have compromised a get-'em-into-the-tent PG-13. ''Soccer'' was released in Hong Kong in 2001, and was available on DVD until nearly a year ago. Yet the comedy and martial arts material is so timeless - in a Three Stooges directed by the Asian action ace Tsui Hark way - the year might as well be 1983. This fact is undeniable, though the scoreboard for the climactic game between the Shaolin stalwarts and their principal foes, Team Evil - that's right, a black-garbed Team Evil, part of that Swiftian touch - shows the year as merely the recent past, 2003. It may be going out to theaters a little after its sell-through date. ''Shaolin Soccer'' is fatty, chewy and funny - and slightly gamy, given the amount of time it sat on the shelf. The kung fu comedy ''Shaolin Soccer'' is real Swiftian comedy: not Jonathan Swift-type satire, but more along the lines of pork products from Swift and company.