Parodies of The Matrix are commonplace these days, taking all the fun out of them. Actor/director Stephen Chow manages to channel Jackie Chan and Jim Carrey goofiness and make a done-to-death genre hilarious again with this movie.
In it, he plays Sing, a chronic optimist despite looking like a homeless man. He lives, it seems, on turning in recyclable materials, all the while espousing the wonders of the martial arts. He meets up with former soccer great "Golden Leg" Fung (his regular sidekick Man Tat Ng), and a brilliant idea is hatched: merge martial arts power and control with the sport of soccer and win a soccer tournament.
Fung has a bit more motivation than Sing. Years earlier, he was a teammate with Hung (Yin Tse), but he blew a penalty kick and an irate mob broke his leg. Now Fung is a flunky for Hung, who looks like an Asian Robert Evans and is now the coach of Team Evil, a nasty soccer team that wears all black.
All you have to see is Team Evil to figure out this movie doesn't take itself very seriously. Chow is one of the top comics in Asia and it's easy to understand why. He's got a wicked sense of parody and satire without the mean spiritedness that seems so prevalent in western comedy.
Sing reassembles his former shaolin brothers, all of whom are now living in one form of shame and disgrace or another. Most are out of shape or painfully skinny and none of them look like they would last two minutes on a soccer field. So of course they go to the playoffs.
For the American release of this film, Miramax trimmed 23 minutes and threatened to change its name to Kung Fu Soccer, but relented on the latter. Much of what is cut in the American theatrical version has to do with a subplot involving Mui (Vicky Zhao), a painfully shy bun baker with a hideous complexion who uses Tai Chi to make the excellent sweet buns.
A large chunk of the conversations between the two are cut from the American release and the whole romantic entanglement between the two is cut way down, possibly because they gave her a face only the Toxic Avenger could love.
The other major cut is a locker room scene that opens the original version, which helps make good guys more virtuous and the bad guys more evil, and in the process simplifying what had been a much more complicated story about revenge. It becomes more of a cartoonish good/evil story rather than the more complicated wuxia-style film Chow made.
Thankfully, Mirmax had at least the good sense to include both versions of the movie on one disc. The original Chow version and the butchered U.S. cut are both here, with the original Chinese dub and English subtitles or an English dub.
Do yourself a favor and watch the full length version and prepare to laugh yourself silly. You don't need to like or appreciate soccer to appreciate the shamelessly goofy, good-natured humor.
Score: 8 out of 10
The Video
Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, this is actually not a bad release, especially after so many dreadful releases from the Disney DVD factory. It's certainly a huge improvement over the Chinese import from Universe Laser & Video Co. that has been the only option for fans up to now (see below).
Colors are generally brighter than the Universe release and good overall. Edge enhancement is all but nil. Fine detail is good, especially in all the close-ups (and I could have done without a few of them), but not exceptional.
On the down side, there's a measurable amount of grain, especially for a movie with so much green screen usage. It seems to get worse as the movie progresses, too. Some of the final shots of the movie were among the worst. The biggest problem is the flicker. It's bad, glaringly in places.
Score: 6 out of 10
Languages and Audio
Shaolin Soccer comes in both English and Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1, with English and Spanish subtitles. The American edit of the film also has a French Dolby 2.0 dub. Probably due to space reasons, the Cantonese DTS mix on the Chinese DVD is absent.
This is a surprisingly tame mix, and the American dub is terrible. Besides awful voices, the movie loses a ton of ambient sound, to the point where all you have is actor voices, recorded in a studio somewhere when the bulk of this movie takes place outdoors. The Chinese mix is much better at capturing the sounds of life around the movie, and all of the little sounds that add nuance.
With all of the Matrix moves and whooshing camera, I really expected more. There was some surround action in the climactic finale, but other than that it's largely front-loaded, with minimal dynamic range. There were some great opportunities for big, booming rumbles in the final soccer match but that was not the case. The audio felt clipped at both the high and low ends of the spectrum.
Score: Score: 6 out of 10
Packaging and Extras
The DVD comes in a standard Amaray case without an insert. The top level menu asks you to choose your cut, original or American. After that you have the usual submenu.
Unfortunately, there are no extras, none. You just get the movie. It's a shame because the Universe DVD had a nice making-of, which included a look at how the effects shots were made.
Score: 0 out of 10
