The plot is utterly ridiculous, and the soccer in the movie is unlike any ever played anywhere on Earth, but watching Shaolin Soccer, you will probably find it impossible to care.
The plot is utterly ridiculous, and the soccer in the movie is unlike any ever played anywhere on Earth, but watching Shaolin Soccer, you will probably find it impossible to care.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 65,143
Shaolin was an art practiced through the ages--a skill mastered in the heart. For six young believers it had become more than just a philosophy. It had become a complete way of life. But as the world changed around them, and honor and discipline became forgotten values, the young followers lost their way--except for Sing. With the help of a former soccer star, he reunites his old, out-of-shape, misfit friends and recruits a young woman with extraordinary Kung Fu skills. Together, they're out to
combine the ancient power of Shaolin with the modern game of soccer and in the process, they just might take the world's most popular sport to its most extreme.
It so deliriously riffs on everything from The Bad News Bears and Jurassic Park to super heroes and break dancing that it's hard not to get caught up in the goofy fun.
No doubt there are sports pedants who will find themselves echoing the sentiments of one exasperated opponent as he exclaims "Please don't play like this! I really want to play soccer!" -- but everyone else will be too busy grinning...to care very much.
I watched this as a kid and remember thinking, "My gosh, these guys are absolutely getting owned by a soccer ball." The action is so absurd and outrageous that it makes everything hilarious. A joy to watch.
Soccer star "Golden Leg" is bribed into throwing an important match and has his legs broken in retribution. Twenty years later he teams up with a young Kung Fu master to win a prestigious Soccer Tournament and revenge himself on the man responsible. Shaolin Soccer is a witty, tongue in cheek pastiche of multiple film
genres, including martial arts epics, Jackie Chan style chop socky slapstick, sports underdog films and even spaghetti westerns. This mish mash of styles and genres reminded me very much of the kind of knowing comedy Simon Pegg would make rather than the juvenile scattershot parodies of Zucker/Abrams. There's a lot of humour in the notion that ordinary people are using Shaolin Kung Fu in everyday life and Chow cleverly uses loony tunes-style CGI and costumes to intercut between the mundane and "epic". The sports film formula is cleverly parodied (the villain's team is called "Team Evil") and the wire work during the match sequences is hilarious! Unfortunately, like Shaun Of The Dead, it is a bit of a one-idea film, and it could've stood to lose a little flab in the middle as it runs out of steam occasionally. But only occasionally. It's a very funny film with plenty of laugh out loud moments, and the combination of martial arts and football will appeal to stereotypical heterosexual men everywhere!
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