Movie Review: Shaolin soccer will be this summer's sleeper hit

Even though, hands down, when this year is all said and done, it will be referred to as The Year of the "Matrix," I have found a movie that may be a sleeper surprise to this summer's blockbusters.

About a month ago my brother loaned me a copy of this movie from China, and told me to give it a gander since I write all of these movie reviews and sport articles. He then added that the movie was due to open here in the states later this summer.

That night I went home to my personal home theatre (a monster system), and me and my boys (ages 4 & 6) sat down to watch this movie.

The movie was coded in it's original DTS Chinese/Cantonese format and English subtitles so it meant reading to my boys as the movie went along. When the movie was over we had experienced something truly amazing. So amazing, in fact, that my oldest son who plays soccer watched it a second time while reading most of the subtitles himself.

A few weeks later we went to see "X2" and there was a trailer in the lobby for the movie "Shaolin Soccer", and my two boys got over excited and began gushing over the movie all over again.

A guy in front of me with his girlfriend murmured that they couldn't have seen the movie because it hadn't opened yet, to which I answered that we did see the movie and it was superb.

At this time, another man and his younger friend asked me if I was talking about "Shaolin Soccer." When I told them that we were, the man and his friend got just as excited as my kids and told me that he had gotten a copy off of it on Ebay about three months ago and loved it.

All of a sudden I felt like I was part of some special elite group of "Shaolin Soccer" fans.

That week we watched the movie again, and I began to tell everyone I knew who liked martial arts films about this fantastic movie.

It had gotten to the point where I had mentioned it in my NFL pre-draft article on eSports and promised to post my review there when finished.

Well, here is that review...

In 2001, "Shaolin Soccer" opened in Hong Kong and finished the year as the high grossing Asian film of all time. Just recently, an Asian cop/Triad film Internal Affairs ended it's reign at the top. That year at the Hong Kong Film Awards, "Shaolin Soccer" took home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Visual Effects honors.

Asian actor Stephen Chow was responsible for the films writing, directing and producing credit, while at the same time he starred in and performed most of his own stunts like Asian counterpart Jackie Chan.

On the Miramax web site, they describe Chow as Asia's version of Jim Carey, and it mentions that he has made over fifty films, with five of those on the top ten highest grossing list.

They also describe Chow as being a fan of director John Woo ("The Killer," "Face-Off" & "MI:2"), which I could tell just by watching this movie.

During the film he spoofed some of Woo's slo-mo trademarks, and a small scene from his cult classic "The Killer" starring Chow Yung Fat.

The movie opens in black and white with two characters dressing up for a championship soccer game. The first character Fung (Ng Man-Tat) is nicknamed "Golden Leg" and is admired by thousands for being a great soccer star.

The second character Hung (Patrick Tse) is disrespected-respected in the locker room by Fung, but offers him a "dishonesty check" to throw the game.

In his greed for money Fung takes the check and throws the game on a goal kick. Instantly the fans turn against him and rush the field. During the melee two men smash the knee of Fung's so-called golden leg ruining his career where we later find out it was Hung who paid for the men to cause the damage.

The movie morphs ahead into the present where Hung is the owned of a team aptly name the "Evil Team" because of their dominance and wins on the field.

Fung who walks with a limp is nicknamed The Lame, and is a gopher for Hung who takes his time disrespecting him in front of the media and anyone else within the room. Fung grows tired, but he knows he needs something special to change his life.

Fung soon meets Sing (Stephen Chow), a down on his luck man with great Shaolin leg skills and a belief of non violence. His dream is to see the world learn the discipline and mastery of the Shaolin arts, but in this era of computers and work no-one seems to care about mastering any type of technique or higher level of living.

The film carries on as Fung and Sing build a friendship while Sing later on meets his love interest Mui (Zhao Wei) a lowly bread maker who uses Tai Chi to bake, but needs serious help in the self morale department.

After witnessing Sing take out a group of thugs using his leg and a soccer ball Fung convinces Sing to use his Shaolin talent to play soccer in the tournament, but the only other problem to solve was that they would need more players.

This is where Sing and Fung go to various places and Sing tries to convince his Shaolin "brothers" that they can bring respect back to martial arts by using their individual talents they have mastered.

This is where the humor comes in as Chow spoofs some of John Woo's slo-mo trademarks.

The "brother" characters are also funny and unique as one of them is a Bruce Lee fanatic.

Once the team is put together it is up to Fung to teach them how to play the game of soccer while putting their techniques to use.

After a hilarious pre-tournament, warm-up game the team builds character and enters the tournament. As they defeat the first team in a landslide victory, Fung's nemesis Hung is informed of the teams' success and later on tries to bribe Fung into dropping out.

Fung declines and finally Fung and Sing's team meets up with Hung's evil team in the finals.

Using "Matrix" style special effects, the game is played, and contains some of the greatest effects I've ever seen in an Asian movie.

In the end, my sons and I were blown away by this family friendly movie. At this time, the movie is making the rounds among friends, but I can't wait to see the movie here on the big screen.

Originally, Miramax didn't know if they were going to release the movie here. Then, they wanted to change the title of the movie to "Kung-Fu Soccer," but later decided to keep it "Shaolin Soccer."

Just recently they listed the movie's rating of PG on their web site, but it was almost PG-13 because of a clip showing a knee injury and the use of some minor swear words (shOt and bullshOt). Both of these problems I found very minor compared to what is seen in this country.

Overall, "Shaolin Soccer" uses the traditional Hollywood "sport movie" formula, but by adding the dimension of martial arts, great special effects, and Asian humor, this movie rises to a high status on my all-time list.

If you're wondering, "Shaolin Soccer" opens nationwide on August 8, 2003.