Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Shaolin Soccer (2001)

Director: Stephen Chow

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Coming on with extreme silliness and a plethora of goodwill, ‘Shaolin Soccer’ is the kung fu-football comedy crossover the world’s been waiting for. Cocking a snook at the sober beauty of ‘Hero’ and the cod-profundity of ‘The Matrix’, this is cinema at its most outrageously enjoyable: a fast and loose Hong Kong stew of Zucker brothers genre terrorism, Tarantinoesque kaleidoscopic stylism, Jackie Chan karate slapstick and Warner Bros cartoon lunacy. It should be a mess; instead, it’s one of the funniest flicks of the year.

The plot is minimalism itself: a group of shaolin monks gone to seed are called into training by a former pro to take on the all-conquering Team Evil in the National Soccer Cup. Leaving that to take care of itself, Stephen Chow (who writes, stars, directs, edits and produces) gets on with spooling together magnificently dumb fight-and-football sequences, works in a low-key love angle, knocks up a couple of song-and-dance routines, tips nods to anything from ‘Band of Brothers’ to ‘The Seven Samurai’ and generally maintains a barrage of every visual and comedic trick in the book (even the bad dubbing is perfectly judged, while the 400-odd special-effects shots are flawless). The humour here is broad but never crude or cruel; even as Chow refuses to take anything too seriously, his affection for cinema and respect for the audience oozes from every scene. You could call it a guilty pleasure, but that would suggest you feel bad about enjoying yourself.

Author: PW

Time Out London Issue 1786: November 10-17, 2004


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Golden boy

Golden boy

Atonement signals a(nother) bold step for British dynamo Joe Wright.

A lion in winter

Frank Langella hits the sweet spot in Starting Out in the Evening.

Dog day evening

Back with a taut new crime film, Sidney Lumet has plenty more to give.

Kiss of death

Goran Dukic proves that romance never dies in Wristcutters: A Love Story.

Monster in law

Jacques Vergès, infamous defender of Nazis and bombers, takes the stand in Terror’s Advocate.

Optic nerve

The eyes have it in “Views from the Avant-Garde.”

King of New York

TONY finds much to crow about at the 45th New York Film Festival.