The Current Cinema - Barrie Pattison urges you to make haste to KUNG FU SOCCER (Stephen Chow, China, 2026)

 

REVENGE OF THE CHINESE MOVIE

Currently in Sydney’s Event Centre and probably other venues that run Chinese movies here, we are getting Stephen Chow Chin-chi’s  Gong fu nv zu/Kung Fu Soccer, his first film in seven years.

Stephen Chow had been one of the greats of Hong Kong film and his 2001 Siu Lam juk kau/ Shaolin Soccer was his major work. What he had done since had been over shadowed by that, so the new film offered hopes of a return to form and fears of a lazy cash-in. What we get is neither.

The earlier movie pivoted on the idea that Shaolin disciples had seen respect for their traditions fade away in the contemporary world, so Stephen retrieves a group of forgotten Shaolin masters from the obscurity of their slum community to form a champion soccer team, using their super powers to dominate the game. It was a great, ridiculous concept beautifully realised. The question is, can it stand another go-round?

The new Kung Fu Soccer has two initial surprises. Here, rather than starring, now sixty-year-old director-producer-writer Chow only momentarily figures, a couple of gag appearances. Second, the picture quality is exceptional. In China they are playing it at IMAX and it’s the number two hit of the year.

 This time the idea has been retreaded for a female soccer team (oh, oh!) in the Asian Women's Champions League but trendy ideology proves minimal. In the opening stages, the plot centers on Zhang Xiaofei, the captain of China’s low status Emei team and Dilraba Dilmurat  as Yu Long, their star striker. Their friendship is failing. Everyone tells the players that, now in their thirties, they are too old for championship matches. They however maintain that it takes decades to acquire their skills. The rookies are not being given a chance and quit and Zhang Xiaofei falls out with her dream-boat love interest, who switches his support to the rival team. All this pretty tame. However the preposterous effects work is already good for a giggle - the kick which sends the ball into the path of an airliner flying over the field. That and the black and white flashbacks provide reminders of Shaolin Soccer - which outclasses this one.

Developments like the supervision of mahjong-playing Grand Master Carina Lau (Infernal Affairs - at last a familiar face) are equally uninvolving. However, a few interesting subplots emerge - the conflict of the earnest captain determined to win and the new recruit who plays for the fun of the game. More importantly, the effects work becomes increasingly flamboyant. The film even develops some suspense as the ball repeatedly trembles on the painted goal line in front of the net. All this meshes with the imposing Olympic Stadium nicely.

Stephen Chow has had a quarter century to refine the Shaolin Soccer concept and in that time Chinese laboratory work has had a chance to do catch-up. We get the magical illusion of a shower of soccer balls defeated by sending in the blind goal keeper, the athletes in the impossible human array pyramids from the wu xia films or the opposing team, who also have superpowers, transforming into a savage cheetah, the big cat racing through the players without attracting the referee’s red card, all both nicely nostalgic and cheerworthy elements for the film’s matches. They represent a triple threat - fun plot developments, an impressive display of film technique and frequently striking imagery that can hold its own with Hollywood’s current strip-cartoon hero movies. The effects make the film well worth the seat price, even if they take a while to obscure the clunky plot.

It’s not all good news however. Kung Fu Soccer has a disturbingly brutal streak. The injuries to the comics and mind games and physical violence the lead couple visit on one another are unsettling to an outside audience and there’s an element of racism in the depiction of the unappealing types who make up the opposing teams. This is unfamiliar in Stephen Chow’s work and, without knowing its intention, it is disturbing. The film is not the great fun outing his earlier work offered. That can only be disappointing.

There was a light opening night attendance. Chow’s admirers are advised to move fast. There is no guarantee it will get past Wednesday.