Coinciding with today’s release of Tarantino’s latest feat of self-gratification, “Dispatch With William II,” I would like to take the time to scrutinize another film that opened recently which follows a trail blazed from the same source material: martial arts genre films.
“Shaolin Soccer” combines the kinetic visual artistry of Shaolin Kung-Fu with nobody’s favorite pastime, soccer. So what if I always had to play defense! Miramax is releasing this Chinese crowd-pleaser ’round these parts, but in a reconstituted form. Gone are the blissfully unintelligible subtitles, in favor of dubbing. Excavated are twenty-five minutes of the film, in favor of pith.
The astoundingly prolific Stephen Chow (who starred in forty-nine films in sixteen years), the J.C. (Carrey) of China, produced, wrote, directed, starred, and did his own stunts. He is an adroit physical actor whose most popular films fall under the genre of “nonsense comedy;” (Mo lei tau) a genre dictated by Flockhart-thin plots, and tangential, secant-ish filmmaking. “Shaolin Soccer”’s gleeful inanity shines through, independent of the great wall of language.
The film opens with a depiction of a planet-sized soccer ball and the Universe, which we all know to be Pelé-ocentric, revolving around it. A few trippy, animated visuals later, we see one of our heroes, Fung, accepting from Hung a “dishonor check,” otherwise known as a “tick-back,” to blow a penalty kick. The requisite angry mob breaks Fung’s famed “Golden Leg;” it seems that it was brass after all.
Flash-forward: An indiscriminate amount of time. Fung, now a servile cripple fondly dubbed “The Lame,” is tooled around by Hung, the fabulously wealthy owner of the Evil Team. Meanwhile, the Brothers, graduates of the Shaolin Orthodox School, have sworn to their fallen master to promulgate their unique brand of Kung-fu in the Chinese mainland. In their search for gainful employment (doing splits on piles of garbage, “look like a saltfish,” cleaning up “smell of urine and excrement with tongue,” being a stockbroker), with many of them falling on “blad” times, they lose sight of their goal (pun achieved). But Sing (Chow) a.k.a. Mighty Steel Leg never does. He is the wacky but dedicated dreamer (“firing-hearted”), and a capable moralizer (“Suicide will not help at all.”). In a neat little idiomatic ha-ha, he tries “sing”-ing and dancing, Shaolin-style, but ends up beaten senseless. Fung meets Sing (you have a “great killer slim leg”) in the context of kick the can, then kick the dumpster, and convinces him that it would be a fine usage of Shaolin Kung-Fu to play “kick the soccer.”
It turns out that Sing, and his merry band of Shaolin homeboys (Iron Shirt- invincible torso, Iron Head-duh, Weight Vest- fat man can fly, Hooking Leg- breakdancin’, Empty Hand- very coordinated goalie) can bend it better than Beckham and with more success even than Soccer Dog a.k.a. Air Bud. Mui, the local steamed bread woman with the powers of the Yin-Yang (more disfigured than Spacey in Pay It Forward *shudder*), plays the dual role of Tai-Chi master (favorite move: Shove 1,000 Cattle with 4 Tails) and love interest for Sing (Beauty and the Hosebeast-style). The film’s rampant misogyny is briefly interrupted by Sing’s feminist declaration that Mui “has her own right to decide her stuff.”
The Shaolin squad enters the local soccer tournament in which the notion that they are underdogs is frankly absurd. Soccer becomes a punitive affair, as they demolish guys brandishing tools, facially-hirsute women (a twist on the Dangerfield classic “Ladybugs”), and some guys who just wanted to play soccer, leading up to the final showdown with the sangfroid-possessing Team Evil. Hung’s evil Evil Team is enhanced by secret American drugs (“I can’t imagine how well of the American medications.”). They are superior in every way to Team Shaolin, but flaming panther balls, evil spirits, tornadoes, men burned alive, and a secret X-factor will determine who will emerge victorious.
“Shaolin Soccer” takes myriad generic elements, American and Asian, and tosses them in the cement mixer: cheesy and inevitable sports pics, anime, CGI-enhanced horror/sci-fi, video games, tacked-on romance, self-reflexiveness (“How’d he do that? Special effects.”), product placement, and war. It has an epic feel, and is deliriously, zanily, surreally, absurdly, captivatingly, logic-be-damned-ly entertaining. It’s a visual buffet and I don’t mean the scenery the actors chew.
Plus, don’t be fooled by Miramax… this film is legit. The Chinese version of “Shaolin Soccer” was an enormous box-office success, trumping the efforts of films starring the more renowned Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat. It also swept the Hong Kong film awards. The inherent goofy charm is being sacrificed in Miramax’s marketing campaign in favor of an “underdog” tale on a CGI-mega-budget (Tagline: “Kick Some Grass.”) Oh ye of little faith, dost thou not recall “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”?
Everybody, not just intramural soccer players, needs to peep this chop soccer-y action/comedy extravaganza. It’s nearing finals time and y’all are takin’ life a lil’ too seriously. There might be a decent quality, subtitled version on the network. If not, I’ll lend you my copy and won’t expect much in return. Then we’ll play some Shaolin Croquet over at Buddhist House.
“Shaolin Soccer” (Miramax trailer at apple.com/trailers). Rating: 3 American Drug Injections out of 4.
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