Called "Shaolin Soccer" Opens at Canadian film festival this Sunday "Special Sneak Preview" One field player does the Higuita double leg scorpion kick in this movie. I think he scored off that shot. -------------- A soccer ball morphs into a ball of fire as it torpedoes across the field, creating a shock wave that rips the turf apart. Players make impossible passes, leap several stories into the air and do backflips that defy the laws of physics. So drop kick the ref and get ready for the ultimate penalty kick with Shaolin Soccer. Sing (Stephen Chow) has high hopes for the art of Shaolin kung fu. Seeing the everyday uses for his beloved martial art, he wishes to teach it to the world, but struggles to find the right means of promotion – until he meets “Golden Leg” Fung (Ng Man Tat), a down-on-his-luck soccer coach/player. Crippled after throwing a match some 20 years earlier, Fung has dreamed of returning to the field to square off against his former boss, the evil soccer kingpin, Hung. Witnessing the power of Sing’s “Leg of Steel,” Fung convinces him to reunite his Shaolin brothers – who have left their martial arts ways behind them to become a janitor, grocery store clerk and even a stockbroker – to form a soccer team. It takes Sing and his cohorts a while to get the hang of the game. Eventually, however, their martial arts and newfound soccer skills make them an unbeatable force and Fung enters them in a competition promising a million-dollar prize to whomever can defeat Hung’s superhuman “Evil Team.” Shaolin Soccer is a breathtaking, unforgettable and, most of all, very cool comedy that combines “wire-fu” techniques and extensive CGI digital post-production. It took four teams of programmers, working for five months, to complete the film’s 400 special effects shots; but these are simply toppings to the talents of director and star Stephen Chow, one of Chinese cinema’s greatest comedic talents. Equally prolific and outrageous, Chow has been a comedic sensation in Hong Kong for the past decade, due to his raw ingenuity, exaggerated pantomimes, parodic cinematic clichés and absurdist humour. Dubbed for its North American release, Shaolin Soccer is Chow at peak performance, delivering a visually exciting mix of genre-bending belly laughs and cool special effects. ------------------ I didn't author the above review. I saw the trailer at a movie today. It was so stupid it was funny, but there is soccer in it so I will go to see it any way. I saw this stupid trailer while watching another stupid movie "Undisputed" Richie
That movie came out last year or something in some other country. I have the DVD already. But it's not bootleg. Don't worry, I won't spoil a thing.
That happens a lot with Hong Kong flicks. The DVDs often aren't region coded, and they always have a half dozen or so language subtitle choices. Because of this, you can often pick up a film on DVD years before it is released in this country. It's sort of a gray area really as to whether your copy is a "bootleg" or not but I wouldn't spend too many sleepless nights worrying about it. ;-) C in SJ