Monday Madness Media for 9/17/18

Media: Chinese film
Shaolin Soccer

Continuing my countdown from last week leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival next week on September 24th (in which where MMM will be taking a break in celebration of the holiday), today is part 2 on some Chinese media! Growing up as a young kid in a foreign country, I got exposed to a lot films that weren’t made in America, nor spoke the English language. I knew had that I to re-watch a childhood movie that was shown to me when I was in second grade. That movie is Shaolin Soccer.

The film is a 2001 martial arts comedy film from Hong Kong, and it is directed and co-written by Stephen Chow, who is starring in the lead role as well. At the time, the movie was the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong, holding the box office record for the country’s film industry and ranks #1 for all releases. It’s record eventually got beat by the next film that Stephen Chow made “Kung Fu Hustle” which was inspired by Shaolin Soccer due to its commercial success.

The movie is basically about the superhuman fusion between Shaolin Kung-Fu and soccer (very similar to Inazuma Eleven I might say). The main character that Chow plays as, “Mighty Steel Leg” Sing, is a former Shaolin monk that gets his five brothers together to use their martial arts skills and play soccer. Sing’s goal was to promote Shaolin Kung-Fu, so more people could learn it and use it in every day tasks. The film also deals with the backstory of their coach, “Golden Leg” Fung, about his misfortunes to what happened to him in the past with the antagonist of the film, Hung. In the film, Chow also proved that women were equally as talented as the men with Mui’s character, Sing’s love interest, being able to user her talents in the soccer field.

A couple of stereotypes some people tend to think of is that all Chinese people know Kung Fu, when in fact it is not true. This is definitely one of China’s oldest traditions but today in modern times, not to many locals are familiar with the fighting style. People in China don’t even bother learning about it other than the history behind it. That is what Shaolin Soccer is trying to promote Sing trying to encourage people to learn Kung-Fu by using it in the popular sport of soccer.

For the film’s production, the performers and martial artists couldn’t really fly or call upon energy forces to enhance their strength, but thanks to CGI, it gave their characters more depth of truly being a superhero. However, not everything in the movie was computer generated. The falls, bumps, and a couple shots by soccer balls, are genuine and real as it gets. Its spoken language was originally in Cantonese, but I remember there being multiple dubbed versions of the movie. I only got to see the original director’s cut when I re-watched it recently. 

With the unique flavor Shaolin Soccer delivers, it brings different style to how comedy or martial arts movies can be made. The film’s visual humor and over the top antics appealed all audiences worldwide. Mixing it with other genres attracts more audiences globally and make connections with characters easily. Other works such as the Rush Hour series and Kung Fu Panda show how martial arts can tell a much bigger story, teach life lessons, and get a good laugh with the family than just combat fighting.

Catch P J’s #Monday Madness Media with different media explored every week