Shaolin Soccer

Shaolin Soccer (2001) begins with a former Shaolin student looking for a way to bring kung fu into ordinary life. The answer turns out to be football. He gathers his five scattered brothers into a team and each brings a forgotten technique onto the pitch. Stephen Chow wrote it, directed it and stars in it. The comedy runs on outsized effects: the ball catches fire, the goalkeeper hangs in the air, and none of it is played straight. It took 60,739,847 Hong Kong dollars locally, the highest grossing film in the territory to that point. Chow broke his own record with Kung Fu Hustle in 2004. Worldwide it made 42.8 million dollars, and it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards. Its American history is instructive. Miramax acquired it, pushed the release scheduled for August 2003, and held it until 2004. The version that came out was 23 minutes shorter, cutting Golden Leg Fung's opening flashback and material between Sing and Mui. It was dubbed into English, with Chow voicing himself. It runs 113 minutes. Good for: physical comedy, sports films, and cinema that uses exaggeration as a method. Less good for: the effects date from 2001 and now show it badly. The jokes about a woman's appearance are uncomfortable, and the second half hands itself over entirely to the match.