Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I had heard about Shaolin Soccer (2001) a couple of years ago from a friend, as he had recommended it to me, knowing the particular way some of my tastes ran, and I am glad he did, as it's a heady mix of the wacky, the absurd, and the just plain fun. The movie starts off with a flashback, showing an extremely popular Chinese soccer player named Golden Leg Fung accepting money to throw a game from a lackey, and the consequences of his actions, including a severely crippling beating by the crowd after purposely missing a rather easy goal scoring opportunity. Now, it's many years later, and Fung now works for the gangster organization that had originally paid him off, in a completely demeaning position. He dreams of coaching, but the once lackey who owns the current champion soccer team and is also chairman of the league, finds this notion completely humorous, and heap further degradations upon Fung. Despondent, Fung ends up meeting a vagabond/shaolin follower called Steel Leg, and formulates a plan to build a new soccer team around this exceptional martial artist. Fung also finds out Steel Leg has enough brothers, all once trained in martial arts, to make up a team. Each brother has their own, unique ability, and soon they begin to practice. During their first practice, the men suffer a fairly brutal beating (this whole pain, beating, and humiliation factor seems to be a constant theme throughout), but soon find their shaolin training coming back to them, and turn the tables on their opponents. They enter the tournament, sweeping through the ranks, until finally the meet with the current champions, the Evil Team (I'm not kidding, that's their name), and meet the ultimate challenge, as the chairman gives his team a decidedly unfair advantage. Will the shaolin players be victorious, or will they suffer the crushing defeat at the hands of the chairman and his evil team?
The special effects here are truly amazing and inventive, making for the most insane soccer playing I've ever seen. Imagine someone being able to kick a soccer ball with the same force of shooting it out of a cannon, and with pinpoint accuracy. There is not really a lot of actual soccer playing, in the traditional sense, as with the abilities of the players, the ball mainly zooms around in a very cartoonish manner. Mixing kung fu and soccer is certainly and interesting concept, and provides some really spectacular visuals. The English captioning is really bad, but certainly gave me much to laugh about, along with the seriously outlandish overacting.
Special features include an option to watch the film with the deleted scenes, the deleted scenes by themselves, a trailer, biographies, a featurette on the making of the film, a photo gallery, and behind the scenes featurette on how the special effects were made. All in all, Shaolin Soccer is an unsane, over the top comedy steeped in outrageous action and definitely worth a look if you care to expand your horizons.
Cookieman108
Click Here to see more reviews about: Shaolin Soccer
With tons of action, eye-popping special effects, and nonstop laughs, here's a hilarious martial arts comedy about a team of misfits who take their best shot at winning a championship! Sing is a skilled Shaolin kung fu devotee whose amazing "leg of steel" catches the eye of a soccer coach! Together they assemble a squad of Sing's former Shaolin brothers inspired by the big-money prize in a national soccer competition! Using an unlikely mix of martial arts and newfound soccer skills, it seems an unbeatable combination ... until they must face the dreaded Team Evil in the ultimate battle for the title!
0 comments:
Post a Comment