"Shaolin Soccer" is "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with soccer balls, a touch of Sergio Leone and not one microsecond of seriousness.
You don't even have to like the sport to enjoy the film's zaniness. And if you love soccer -- which, let's face it, is God's game -- you should juggle and dribble your way right now to the nearest theater showing it. (Which is just one venue downtown. Presumably, it will expand to soccer-friendly suburbia in the weeks to come.)
Sing (Stephen Chow) and his five brothers use martial arts skills to lead a struggling soccer team toward a tournament cup in "Shaolin Soccer."
(Miramax Films Via AP)
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Stephen Chow's Hong Kong movie, which has smashed box-office records in Asia, is about six down-and-out brothers, all former martial arts monks, who rediscover their high-flying chops when they're invited to join a soccer team. They've never played the game, but it doesn't take them long to apply their skills to the sport.
Maybe "skills" doesn't conjure up what these boys can do with a ball.
When ringleader-brother Sing (longtime comedy star/filmmaker Chow), a kung fu master, kicks the first ball at practice, it soars into the heavens. Literally. The players wait for it to come down. And they wait. Sing, who isn't called "Mighty Steel Leg" for nothing, can shoot the ball through walls. And when he really whacks that thing, it becomes a turf-burning projectile that causes a near-hurricane and leaves a scalded furrow in the grass.
Another brother's chest practically turns into a baseball glove to grip the ball before projecting it toward the goal with missile intensity. The fattest of the brothers has the ability to hover in the air like a hummingbird. The kid brother (who has a head wiggle like Bruce Lee's) can stop anything that flies his way. And they can all leap those proverbial tall buildings in a single bound.
The brothers, and the rest of their newfound teammates, are going to need everything they've got, however, against Team Evil, a club of steroid-enhanced athletes who stand menacingly between them and a soccer tournament cup.
Winning this tournament is a big proving ground for the brothers, to show the world that they're not rundown losers and to promote the virtues of kung fu. But it's also a case of payback for their coach, Fung "Golden Leg" (Ng Man-tat). A former sensation as a young player, Fung saw his knee and career intentionally destroyed by a thug sent by the dastardly Hung (Patrick Tse). That's the same Hung who runs Team Evil.
Cue the hisses.
"Shaolin Soccer" follows the familiar lowly-team-triumph story, which we've seen in everything from "The Bad News Bears" to "Mighty Ducks 27." But that's just the glorified excuse for wild-card fun on and off the field.
Chow is the heart of the picture as the wandering hero who dreams of a world where everyone uses martial arts skills for everyday life. And his slow-burning romance with Mui (Vicki Zhao), a socially withdrawn maker of sweet rolls, is a charming side dish to the main action. She has bad skin, which she tries to hide under her long hair, but she's a kung fu master of the culinary world. She makes yin-yang patterns with wet dough, sends it spinning into the air and perfects the bun in a blur of elegant precision. She's the perfect match for Sing. And she's not one to watch a soccer game from the stands, either.
The movie, which Chow produced, directed, edited and co-wrote (with Kan-Cheung Tsang), is a hoot from beginning to end. The wire-suspended stunts and other special effects -- though hardly big-budget -- are giddily inspired, and the comic inventiveness never flags. Like the time when Sing first sets eyes on Mui at her bun-making stand and suddenly breaks into a singing tribute. He's joined immediately by an instantly choreographed group of passersby. Suddenly, we're watching a Hong Kong version of a Bollywood routine? In this amusing universe, anything can happen and, wonderfully, it does.
Shaolin Soccer (87 minutes, at Landmark's E Street Cinema) is rated PG-13 for cartoonish violence. In Cantonese with subtitles.
