After a fateful mistake costing his career, an ex-soccer player bum meets a shaolin kung fu student trying to spread the word of kung fu. The ex-soccer player helps reconcile with his five brothers, and teaches them soccer, adding shaolin kung fu as a twist.Written by
ravedragon
This was the first Hong Kong Movie to ever cross the HK$ 60 million (HK$60,739,847) mark in the Hong Kong box office. See more »
Goofs
In the English dub the team "mo gui dui" is translated into "Team Evil", even though that has nothing to do with the original name, a better translation is "Devils" or "Demons". See more »
Quotes
Sing:
I said... that's no way to kick.
Golden Leg Fung:
You think you can do better?
Sing:
There must exist a fusion of mind and foot.
See more »
Some of the changes to "Shaolin Soccer" found in the new Miramax U.S. cut:
The film has been shortened from 102 minutes to just over 80
The opening titles have been deleted. Replaced by main title over generic "Asian" background.
The opening B&W bribery scene between Golden Leg and Hung has been deleted.
A musical sequence with Sing and the gang outside of Mui's sweet roll shop has been reinstated.
Dialog has been removed between Sing and Iron Head during the club scenes, and the song they perform is in a major key, rather than the original minor key.
Also gone are some of the bottle-to-head smashes on Iron Head.
The vomit and fart gags have been deleted from Sing's first soccer attack in the streets.
All the initial meetings with the Brothers have been shortened.
The film is dubbed into English, thus not allowing time for the true translation of the screenplay. Dialog is often without the meaning the original version contained.
Sing's apartment scene is deleted.
The first of the two iterations of the "egg" joke with Little Brother and Iron Short during soccer training remains in the Miramax cut.
Golf course scene between Hung and Golden Leg has been cut out.
The final soccer match has a variety of cuts in it, mostly to take out the more extreme visuals featuring blood and violence.
A cover version of "Kung Fu Fighting" is used over the last scene of the film and the end credits, removing the score entirely.
References to Team Evil's use of illegal American drugs have been replaced with references to "training."
Throughout the nearly two hour running time of this movie, the room was a glow with merriment, excitement, and remarks of "Holy crap, that is the coolest thing ever!" Indeed, for this movie is filled with amazing visuals, fantastic fun, and all around goodness. Shaolin Soccer is a harmless movie, the type that mentions the normal morals you might find in a children's movie (work in teams, don't let success go to your head, cheating is bad, etc.), without preaching them.
Some Shaolin-trained, but for the most part poor and unhappy men get organized in a soccer team with a coach who was crippled in a soccer riot after losing the big game twenty years ago. You've got a variety of misfits--the spunky young'n with the steel leg, the obese convenience store clerk who can nearly fly, the plutocratic salary man who uses a style reminiscent of Flying Chimpanzee's Cotton Belly in Wing Chun. It's an odd little band, stretching from barely-post adolescent to nearly retirement age. This rag-tag band is quite endearing and it works so well.
Sure, there are a few instances of cheap humor, but you've got to expect this. The visuals are fantastic, the characterization competent (even if you probably have seen the archetypes before), and it's a lot of fun, whether it's the parody of a war movie (which my friend called scant instants before it happened) or the somewhat unusual tribute to Bruce Lee (hint: it's all in the sunglasses).
Should you see this movie? Yes. I'd say this movie deserves 4 1/2 stars out of five based on technical merits, etc. But on fun? That's right, it gets a million billion stars. Now let's see what Miramax cut out--25 minutes? Crap.
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Throughout the nearly two hour running time of this movie, the room was a glow with merriment, excitement, and remarks of "Holy crap, that is the coolest thing ever!" Indeed, for this movie is filled with amazing visuals, fantastic fun, and all around goodness. Shaolin Soccer is a harmless movie, the type that mentions the normal morals you might find in a children's movie (work in teams, don't let success go to your head, cheating is bad, etc.), without preaching them.
Some Shaolin-trained, but for the most part poor and unhappy men get organized in a soccer team with a coach who was crippled in a soccer riot after losing the big game twenty years ago. You've got a variety of misfits--the spunky young'n with the steel leg, the obese convenience store clerk who can nearly fly, the plutocratic salary man who uses a style reminiscent of Flying Chimpanzee's Cotton Belly in Wing Chun. It's an odd little band, stretching from barely-post adolescent to nearly retirement age. This rag-tag band is quite endearing and it works so well.
Sure, there are a few instances of cheap humor, but you've got to expect this. The visuals are fantastic, the characterization competent (even if you probably have seen the archetypes before), and it's a lot of fun, whether it's the parody of a war movie (which my friend called scant instants before it happened) or the somewhat unusual tribute to Bruce Lee (hint: it's all in the sunglasses).
Should you see this movie? Yes. I'd say this movie deserves 4 1/2 stars out of five based on technical merits, etc. But on fun? That's right, it gets a million billion stars. Now let's see what Miramax cut out--25 minutes? Crap.