Shaolin Soccer

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Ian Stanley reviews

Shaolin Soccer
Distributed by
Universe Laser (HK)

    Cover

  • Cert: IIB
  • Cat.no: DTS5752
  • Running time: 112 minutes
  • Year: 2001
  • Pressing: 2001
  • Region(s): 0, NTSC
  • Chapters: 8 plus extras
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Cantonese), Dolby Digital 5.1 (Cantonese & Mandarin), DTS (Cantonese)
  • Languages: Cantonese & Mandarin
  • Subtitles: English, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified).
  • Widescreen: 1.85:1
  • 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
  • Macrovision: Yes
  • Disc Format: DVD 9
  • Price: £6.00
  • Extras: Special Version of film, Trailer, CGI Demos, Out-takes, Cast Biographies, Making Of.

    Director:

      Stephen Chiau

Producer:

    Yeung Kwok Fei

Screenplay:

    Stephen Chiau & Tsang Kan-Cheong

Music:

    Raymond Wong

Cast:

    Sing: Stephen Chiau
    Mui: Zhao Wei
    Fung/Golden Leg: Ng Man-tat
    Hung: Tse Yin
    Iron Head: Wong Yut-fei
    Weight Vest: Lam Ji-chung
    Iron Shirt: Tin Kai-man
    Hooking Leg: Mok Mei-lam
    Empty Hand: Chan Gwok-kwan

It’s always nice when you can start a review saying that the following film is “unlike anything that you will have seen before” and know that you’re not trying to emulate poster-quote whore Paul Ross. Put it this way, how many movies have you seen recently that mix football, Shaolin Kung-Fu, wirework, that GAP advert version of Bullet-Time, slapstick comedy, cartoon violence and lashings of CGI?

In it’s opening prologue Hong Kong soccer star Fung AKA ‘Golden Leg’ is bribed into missing a penalty and losing a match. In the ensuing outraged pitch invasion, Fung is attacked and left crippled, unable to continue his playing career. We jump forward in time and Hung (Tse Yin), the man who delivered the cheque, is manager of the ‘Evil Team’ (and sports an hilarious 80’s Football star mullet) the best football team in all of Hong Kong and Fung (Ng Man-tat) now works for him in a lowly position. When Fung asks to move up to the position of Coach, Hung fires him and also admits that it was he who arranged for Fung to be crippled in the first place.

Sing (Steven Chiau) is one of a group of gifted ex Shaolin Monks, entrusted by their dying master to go forth and find a way to package Shaolin Kung Fu with the aim of bringing it to the wider World. So far they have not been successful and have all parted ways to earn a living however they can. Fung and Sing cross paths one day when Fung bears witness to the amazing power with which Sing can kick a ball. Fung suggests that they can help each other, Sing can use Soccer to bring Kung Fu to the masses and Fung can coach him so that he can best Hung and his ‘Evil Team.’ Once the rest of the ex-monks are on board they start to take the tournament by storm, however, Hung takes steps to ensure that when it comes to the final, the odds are well and truly stacked against them.

Embarrassingly, the Octopus had not laced up its shoes.

Chances are that if you’re not into Asian Cinema then you’ve probably never seen or heard about this film. Yet it’s an open secret, an Eastern gem that’s awaiting discovery by the Western masses. This film, along with the upcoming Jet Li movie Hero, stands as one of the focal points of an ‘East meets West’ culture clash that would be funny if it weren’t so tragic for film fans. Shaolin Soccer is a film that contains great crossover appeal – it’s an ideal jumping off point that people could use to develop an interest in Asian films. Sadly, unless you’re willing to go looking for this film then you’re unlikely to find it, as it won’t be ‘Coming To A Cinema Near You’ anytime soon. Here’s why…

You may be familiar with the name ‘Miramax,’ a subsidiary of Disney and the company who have produced all of Quentin Tarantino’s films from Pulp Fiction onwards. The company is seen in Hollywood as the ‘Arthouse and Oscar Darlings,’ their Ad campaigns have spurred The English Patient and Chicago onto great Oscar success. However, this comes with a price, their lower profile and genre films (the one’s that don’t stand a chance at the Oscars) are routinely snubbed and buried in the market, an undeserved fate shared by many solid films.

A few years ago Miramax (in the wake of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon‘s successes) went on a buying spree and snapped up the North American and International distribution rights to a slew of Asian movies. Since then they have proceeded to dub them, chop them, horde them and then persecute people who wished to seek out the original versions for themselves. Take Shaolin Soccer as a case in point, a huge success in its native Asian market, Miramax saw the huge crossover potential of the movie and snapped up the rights in late 2001. Since then, the movie has sat in a virtual limbo as Miramax tried to figure out what to do with a title they didn’t understand. It has been dubbed, cut, rescored, had its title changed and has at one point been considered as a direct-to-video release in the U.S. (You can almost bet that that will be its fate in the UK, if it ever makes it here). Finally, in April 2004, it was released to US cinemas in a somewhat cut form, but thankfully still with both its original language and title. However, it has only been released to a handful of arthouse cinemas and even then with little fanfare, meaning that most people who might enjoy it probably aren’t even aware of its existence. On the bright side, the average box office total per screen is pretty good and almost all the reviews for the movie have been very favourable.

This movie deserves better. It follows in the footsteps of much of Chiau’s previous work, a tale of underdogs triumphing over adversity and whilst you’ll have probably guessed then end of the movie within about 30 minutes of it starting, the joy of this story is not so much in how it ends but in the telling of the story itself (which is why there’ll be some slight spoilers in this review – so be warned). It is pure feel-good cinema at its finest, a movie so bereft of any cynicism in its content, conception and execution that I should actually hate the sight of it. But I don’t. A few minor niggles aside I truly love this movie!

One of the things that is so good about this movie is the fact that the morality in it is so ‘black & white,’ the Monks are very much the good guys here and the aptly (and cutely) named ‘Evil Team’ are very much the ‘bad.’ Once the rest of the Monks come into the fold, their motives for wanting to win the Championship are pure, they follow Sing’s vision of using their intended triumph to honour their ex-master’s wish. Even Fung, whose motives are slightly greyer, eventually comes around and when history threatens to repeat itself he beats his personal demons and makes the right choice.

It’s also interesting to wonder exactly whose story this is… Although Chiau is the lead and gets the lion’s share of the screen time, his character’s arc is the least pronounced of the story. He pretty much finishes up the film exactly the same person he was when it started. It’s the supporting characters, in particular Iron Head, Mui and Fung, who go through the most significant changes, starting the film in a very bad place and gaining self-belief as the story goes on.

This probably ranks as Chow’s most accessible movie, whilst it does occasionally veer into surreal material the majority of the comedy comes from its slapstick violence. People are hit over the head with wrenches, bottles and hammers, people are punched and have doors slammed in their face and they’re kicked about 20 feet into the air, but it’s presented as no more painful or serious than any material you would find in a ‘Roadrunner’ or ‘Tom & Jerry’ cartoon. With only one exception, anyone in this movie on the business end of a pummeling bounces back in the next scene with no permanent damage.

This is most definitely a film that can be watched and enjoyed by football fans and non-fans alike, although fans are likely to get more out of it. Some of the films funniest moments are in the training scenes when the Shaolin’s skills are underdeveloped, one can’t help but laugh when you first see their amateur attempts at dummying. There’s also a hysterical scene when the team play their first amateur game and it, quite literally, turns into a violent battle. I’m sure there are more than a few of you out there that can relate to that. It’s also amusing to see that the opinion (held by some) that girls know nothing of Football/Soccer is also one that’s also shared in the East. The matches themselves are very well done, they manage to be funny, exciting, comically violent, visually stylish and also make great use of CGI. In fact the last two compliments hold true for the film overall, Chiau makes good use of the camera here and gives the film great style and energy!

The performances from the main cast are superb, everyone involved gives their all and makes their character shine and the Script, co-written by Chiau, makes sure that everyone gets a chance to do so. The enthusiasm of the Shaolin Team is infectious, always grinning naively at the problems that they face. Their expression of sheer joy when they reach the Final, first see the ‘Cup’ and realise they have a chance at it is so well played it’s surprisingly touching. There also a nice selection of cameos to spot for Asian film fans, including ones by Karen Mok and Cecilia Cheung from King of Comedy.

The film isn’t perfect by any means. Like I said it is predictable and the sudden appearance of a character at a critical point for the Team seems like poor storytelling. I’m also not sure about a sub-plot detailing a budding romance between Sing and Mui, a Tai-Chi practicing girl who works on a local food stall – the twist is that she has really bad skin and no confidence. This twist is interesting but I have mixed feelings about the message in the way that it pans out, you may feel otherwise though…

Miriam had always wanted to play football…

As far as I recall, this disc was the first time that the Hong Kong DVD distributor ‘Universe’ released an Anamorphic transfer for one of their domestic films. The results are mixed… It is framed at approximately 1:78:1 and this results in some of the Opening Credits being cut off the screen, this is of no real importance though. The transfer seems a bit soft at times and lacking in detail, there is also some speckling and minor print damage, which is remarkable considering that at the time of this disc’s release the film was brand new. You wouldn’t be wrong in expecting the print to be flawless! The film’s heavy use of CGI also presents a problem, obviously the effects aren’t so advanced as they are in top Hollywood films but they’re very good. You’ll most likely know that a CGI shot is coming up though as the film suddenly gets (and I find it hard to describe this) an overly processed digital look… This is obviously down to the source material though, and the transfer can’t really be held responsible, but it’s worth a mention anyway.

The sound comes in four flavours, Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in both the original Cantonese and also a Mandarin dub and then a Dolby Digital 2.0 and DTS 5.0 track in Cantonese. Sadly none of the tracks are of a Reference Quality but I feel that with a little more care the DTS track could have been. The apparent lack of a dedicated bass channel on the DTS track stops it from having that extra ‘kick’ and it also loses synch with the picture at one point, leading to the amusing effect of hearing bottles smash before they actually do on screen. That said, the mix itself is pretty active with very good use made of all the surrounds especially in Sing’s football fight with a street gang. The Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks seem a little pale in comparison, encoded at a much lower volume and with somewhat less impressive audio separation. The Dolby Digital 2.0 track is ok for what it is, the surrounds pump out the score and some atmospheric effects meaning it’s quite an immersive little track.

The English subtitles could also have done with a little more care and attention as they suffer from quite a few Spelling and Grammatical errors. These are far from the worst I’ve seen but the errors are distracting.

Spit in MY face, Totti. I dare you!

Onto the extras…

There’s a nice animated sequence that brings us into the main Menu and all I can say is that I hope that you like it, as you will be seeing it quite a few more times… It seems like Universe encountered some problems with authoring this disc the first of which is that every time you return to the Main Menu you have to sit through the Animated Intro again, it is unavoidable and it becomes quickly irritating.

From the Main Menu you can chose to play the film in either its Theatrical or Special incarnations, and this is where the main authoring problems occur with the disc. The Special version plays the Theatrical Cut of the film but with a ‘Follow the White Rabbit’ type option that is similar to that from the original ‘Matrix’ disc. At various points in the film an icon will appear in the top-right hand corner of the screen, at this point you can press the Enter/Select button on your remote and it will link off to other material, returning you to the film when it is done…

When the little Icon shows white you can access scenes for an Extended Cut of the film, these scenes are presented in Anamorphic Widescreen but with only Dolby Digital Pro-logic sound – it’s a shame that this version wasn’t encoded using Seamless Branching technology. The Extended version gives us two extended/deleted scenes and a selection of out-takes before the end credits. The extra scenes are pretty good but don’t really add too much to the film, one is a really bizarre dance scene and the other is a scene that gives a little more depth to the character Mui. The Outtakes are pretty funny and, fortunately, can be played outside of this Special version (albeit without subs), sadly the same cannot be said for the Extended scenes themselves.

When the little icon turns Orange it links off to a demonstration of how the special effects were created for that particular scene. These can also be selected for playing separately from the Extended Version.

The problem with the Authoring here is that the Icon is linked to the Subtitle tracks so even if you do not wish to play these extended scenes (EG. You just wish to watch the Theatrical version with Subs) the little icon will appear anyway if you have a subtitle track selected.

The only other extra selectable from the Main Menu is the Theatrical Trailer (0:57), which is short, gives nothing away and plays more like a Teaser Trailer than anything else.

The rest of the Special Features are selectable from the designated sub-menu. From this menu we are given direct access to the above mentioned Out-takes (2:44 – oddly without subtitles this time) and CGI demos (7:45). There are Biographies for Stephen Chow, Vicki Zhao Wei and Ng Man-Tat and also a Photo Gallery with 38 Photos.

Finally we also have a ‘Making of Documentary’ (20:32), which thankfully is a little more substantial than the usual backslapping fluff… It has quite a lot of Behind-The-Scenes footage and covers such subjects as the CGI, how Stephen Chow came up with the concept and what he’s like as a director amongst other things. I have to say that actress Vicki Zhao Wei is not too well served by this documentary (or perhaps the English translation of the subs) as she comes across as a little bit arrogant and insensitive.

As such, it’s not a bad little package for a Hong Kong release and whilst Universe deserve points for the extra effort, they also lose points for avoidable disc authoring issues.

The Sellafield-made football had a strange effect…

Minor niggles with the plot are enough to bring the film down from 5 Stars to a still more than respectable 4 and a half… That’s just me being overly critical though. If we were basing the score purely on how much fun a film is then it would most definitely score a 5. The Picture and Sound are both solid enough but not exemplary and the extras package is good but flawed. Overall it’s a decent disc but it shows a lack of care. Still, the film is what really counts and when it can be picked up from as little as £6 (excl P&P), this is the cheapest way of getting hold of the ‘Uncut’ version of an absolutely superb film.

(Update: There is a Region 1 disc scheduled for release on 24/8/2004 which will include the Chinese Cut of the film and the International Cut. No word yet on any extras.)

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL
Review copyright © Ian Stanley, 2004.

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