Prismark10
A famous footballer, Golden Leg misses a spot kick in a crucial football match and a fan breaks his leg.Now crippled and humiliated by the man who told him to throw the match. He comes across a Shaolin martial artist who applies his kung fu skills to to soccer. Soon the Shaolin follower rounds up his old friends with various skills that are now dormant and set a soccer team to take part in prestigious tournament.Under the watchful eye of Golden Leg, their crippled coach, the team could take revenge on the man who ruined his career.This is a wacky, uneven Hong Kong kung fu comedy with some balls. I thought it was pretty awful. Each time it looked like the movie may get better it lapsed into silliness.
Adam Peters
(59%) A very crazy, very childish - but in a good way - effects based comedy. The ideas featured don't always work well (like most comedy), although largely they do, and even the few more subtle comedic elements translate nicely. There's quite a number of strange, and very eastern almost manga style elements that would never make it into a western film such as the really unusual romantic love interest character that comes across as more confusing than anything else. In terms of the actual soccer played it's more likened to an episode of "Wacky races" than the real game itself, but it's still very fun to watch, and fans of Chow will almost certainly like his over-the-top brand of comedy.
SolNigerWithin333
If you are a fan of Asian cinema watch Shoalin Soccer, if you are looking for a downright funny film watch Shoalin Soccer, if you laughed till you cried watching Kung-Fu Hustle prepare to do so again.Do not however watch Shoalin Soccer if you are looking for a serious romance or for the "SOCCER" you will be somewhat disappointed. I say somewhat because among all the slapstick humour and jokes the movie has quite a moving story and the characters are developed quite well, at least the main ones are. The movie flows really well from the beginning it never becomes dull or tedious and the jokes and gags are timed perfectly courtesy of Steven Chow who is a fantastic director; shame the types of movies he works with aren't really appreciated and Hollywood has made sure of that. Besides that go see the movie if you want 2 hours of pure entertainment from a fantastic movie.In terms of a comedy movie i give this a 9/10. But in all seriousness this movie gets a 7.5/10 from me.
TheHande
Stephen Chow has a knack for combining impressive special-effects, interesting characters and hilarious comedy. The prototype of Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, demonstrates many of Chow's strengths but the film does not rise to the same level of excellence as the later film.The film relies heavily on making the characters as pathetic as possible but lacking the multi-level approach of Kung Fu Hustle the characters just come off miserable at first and then suddenly get better for no reason. The story also focuses too heavily on a central duo of characters and the badguys are left more to the background.The film still has hilarious Kung Fu references and excellent visual-effects and gags which keep the viewer invested in the film but the structure is too straight-forward and too simplistic to compete with Chow's later work.However, it's entertaining and I guess that's what really counts.
AD
