Shaolin Soccer. (2001)

Shaolin Soccer is one of those films that will leave an audience divided. There will be those who will love this film, who will find the irreverent, surrealistic and often times, very silly humour, both extremely funny and endearing at the same time. And there are those who will not only dislike the film, but dislike it with a passion, who will criticise it on the basis that it is too silly, too over the top that in their eyes, makes Shaolin Soccer a penchant for idiocy. And then there are soccer aficionados. Enough said.

I didn't found this film to be idiotic in any way, as some have said. Of course the humour is silly and in a lot of cases, over the top, but for those who are familiar with Stephen Chow, and Hong Kong comedy as a whole, this style of comedy is a unique genre within Hong Kong film culture, where it is known as mo lei tau, loosely translated as "makes no sense."As such, the humour in such a genre is surrealistic, slapstick and relies heavily on the playing of the Cantonese dialect, which consequently creates a certain humour that only a Cantonese-speaking person would get. And considering I'm a Cantonese-speaking person, it's probably one of the reasons why I love this film. Much of the verbal humour is untranslatable and the subtitles merely provide a superficial copy of the verbal humour espoused. Despite this, this does not detract it from being a very funny film.

Basically, the plot revolves significantly around Sing, played by Stephen Chow, a former Shaolin monk specialising in the Mighty Steel Leg kung fu technique that seemingly has the strength and durability to catapult fridges with just a single kick. Allied with former disgraced soccer player and now current coach "Golden Leg" Fung, played by Ng Man Tat, Sing forms a Shaolin soccer comprising of his Shaolin brothers and social delinquents, playing in a series of matches using their Shaolin skills till finalising with an epic soccer match/battle against Team Evil, headed by the flamboyant Hung (Patrick Tse). Through this simple plot, much of the mo lei tau comedy can be brazenly seen in many scenes. A notable scene that I liked was the spontaneous Michael Jackson dance routine, in which made me laugh quite a bit. Also the eating-the-egg-from-fellow-brother's mouth scene, though this scene might be seen as too crude in its humour to some viewers. However, even in the midst of such humour and silliness, the relationship between Sing and the bun-making woman, Mui, stops the film from being overly comedic in its content and adds a sense of poignance and tenderness to the film.