My Favourite Sports Movie
Shaolin Soccer is a Hong Kong Comedy movie released in 2001. It was directed by one of the starring actors, Stephen Chow.
In this movie, a former shaolin monk reunites his five brothers who have dispersed to make a living in different ways years after the death of their master, to apply their martial art skills and superhuman abilities in playing soccer so that through it they can propagate Shaolin Kung Fu to the wider populace. This movie is heavily laced with comic scenes that gets one cracking up his/her ribs laughing.
Sing is a master of Shaolin Kung Fu whose aim is to promote the spiritual and practical benefits of the martial art to modern society and to apply in different fields and occupations. He experiments with various methods, but none produced the desired results.
He then met the once famous "Golden Leg" Fung, who was once a Hong Kong soccer star in his younger days, but is now walking with a limp, following his betrayal by a former teammate, Hung who is now a rich businessman.
Sing explains his sole aim to Fung, who in turn offers his services to coach Sing in soccer. Sing is compelled by the idea of promoting kung fu through soccer, and agrees to help enlist his former Shaolin brothers to form a team under Fung's management. Sing and Fung attempt to put together an unbeatable soccer team by bringing all of Sing's former shaolin brothers into this team .
After a couple of failed attempts, Sing's brothers expectedly showed up and they all agreed to participate in the team. Fung invites a vicious team to play against them for a start and the thugs proceed to give the Shaolin Team a severe literal beating. When all seems lost, the Shaolin disciples reawaken and rediscovered their previously undermined abilities, proceeded to utilize their special powers, dismantling the other team's rough play easily. The thugs then give up and ask to join Sing's team.
Along the line, Sing meets Mui, a baker with severe acne who usesTai Chito bake bread. He takes her to look at very expensive dresses at a high-end department store after working hours. She soon forms an attachment to Sing and even gets a makeover in an attempt to impress him. However, this backfires and when Mui eventually revealed her feelings for him, he tells her he only wants to be her friend. This revelation, coupled with the constant bullying from her mean boss, forced Mui to disappear.
The newly formed Shaolin team enters the open cup competition in Hong Kong, where they sailed through various consecutive and often ridiculously one-sided victories due to their special Shaolin abilities and extraordinary techniques. They finally wind up meeting ** The Evil Team** owned by Hung in the final.
The Evil Team had been injected with hard drugs supposedly gotten from America, this gave them extraordinary strength, agility and speed, making them practically invincible and seemingly unbeatable. This harshly brought the Shaolin Team back to reality when the Evil team's amazing capabilities and techiniques proved more than a match for them.
After Evil team harshly takes out Shaolin team's two goalkeepers and got several others injured almost to submission, Mui, who has shaved her hair and improved her face, reappears to take the place of the goalkeeper for the Shaolin team although she was countered by Sing who was afraid for her safety but he eventually gave up since they had no choice. She also brought along Sing's old broken winning shoes which he had previously thrown away, she had it patched up.Mui while taking her place on the pitch displayed some amateur and ignorant actions which compounded the frustration on the side of the Shaolin team at that moment.
In the final attack, the Evil team's striker leaps into the sky and kicks the ball with enormous and dangerous force towards Mui, who prevents him from scoring with her Tai chi skils. Mui and Sing combine their martial skills and rocket the ball down field towards the goal of the Evil team. The ball thundered through goal post of the Evil team thereby scoring the winning goal and inflicting shameful damages on the Evil team, their goal keeper even got stripped naked by the force of the shot. Sing is then thrown into the air in celebration as the trophy is presented to him and his team mates.
A newspaper article then shows Hung being stripped of his title of soccer chairman and sentenced to jail for five years for cheating while the players of Evil team were banned permanently from playing soccer professionally.
Sing goes out for a morning jog and feels joy at seeing the people around him practicing Kung Fu and implementing it into their daily lives and various occupation. He was very happy having seen his lifelong dream become a reality.
This movie is so interesting and it further made football interesting through the application of Shaolin Kung Fu techniques.
Various comic scenes were displayed, for example where the Shaolin team's First brother and Sing got battered after they were misquoted by a group of party attendees.
It is a movie i won't forget in a hurry.
All images are screenshots from the movie
