‘Shaolin Soccer’ delights with crazy silliness
Print Edition
Enthusiasm is contagious, and comedy filmmaking is as good as any other medium to demonstrate this.
Take the early movies of Jim Carrey like “The Mask,” the early Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis buddy movies, or even the early Adam Sandler movies (which I’m generally not a fan of).
There’s an unmistakable kinetic energy from their anarchic spirit that runs through the performers excited to entertain.
As a counter example, take the work of those same people later in their career. The skill-set might be the same, but the excitement is utterly diminished. The routine is old hat.
“Shaolin Soccer” is firmly in the former category, a chance to join people having fun together in a positive, pleasant, and infectious way.
The people in it generally seem to be having a good time and don’t mind hamming it up or looking silly for the camera. The whole thing is buoyed by Stephen Chow’s performance in the lead as “Mighty Steel Leg.”
His character may want to show the true nature of kung fu, but then again, the movie also shows his kicking technique blowing the net off a soccer goal.
So the moral is kung fu isn’t just for fighting, it’s for cartoonish special powers? That lapse of logic doesn’t take away from the movie at all because it’s approached with such a wide-eyed innocence.
The story is so sincere that cover versions of Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting” and Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration,” two of the most overplayed and cheesy songs of all time, didn’t bother me at all while playing throughout the movie.
This is not to discount the visual effects, which are simple, yet still innovative and effective. I’m sure many-a-serious meeting was made on the craziest way to get a ball into a net, physics be damned.
In Shakespeare’s “Julius Ceasar,” the titular character was murdered because he was too ambitious.
Proving to be the opposite in almost every conceivable way, “Shaolin Soccer” succeeds because it’s not ambitious, because it’s content to simply be fun. So those works are opposite, except that they entertain.
(Brian Offenther is a Shanghai-based DJ and music promoter.)
‘Shaolin Soccer’ (2001)
• Where to see it: It is available to watch for free on video-streaming sites like Youku.
• What to see: This slapstick sports/action flick finds actor/director Stephen Chow as a poor bottle collector who dreams of showing the world that kung fu is more than just for fighting. He gets his chance when he’s recruited by Ng Man Tat as ex-soccer star “Golden Leg,” who hopes to enact revenge on his former teammates on Team Evil. “Shaolin Soccer” was chosen by the Hong Kong Film Awards as one of the best 100 Chinese motion pictures.
• Brian’s score: 07/10
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