Tag: kung fu
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Don’t bet a leg on ‘Shui Hu the Soccer Heroes’ (2006)
Talk about strange. I found Shui Hu, The Soccer Heroes ( 水浒足球 ), an anime Chinese DVD, in my county library system. The animation is quite crude and similar to Captain Tsubasa, so that I thought this film must be from the early 1980s. Instead, this feature length cartoon from Hong Kong was produced in…
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‘The Final Goal’ (1995) is a unique kung fu soccer movie
Is this worth watching? When Erik Estrada has top billing, you know it’s going to be cheezy. The best line in The Final Goal is when Estrada’s henchman tells him, “You should have been an actor.” Estrada is the bad guy bribing 6 players to lose a semi-final game in the Global Cup. The only…
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‘Boh Ngau’ (1983) predates Shaolin Soccer by 20 years
Boh Ngau (The Champions) is a hidden gem of a football comedy, combining soccer with the formulaic plot of a Hong Kong kung fu flick. I was shocked to realize it pre-dates Shaolin Soccer by almost 20 years, and yet it has an impressive level of soccer skill without any CGI.
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Mystical and omnipotent ‘Shaolin Soccer’ (2001)
After watching a slew of soccer movies, I reopened my Shaolin Soccer DVD. I liked it 10 years ago, but now I recognize how inventive the movie is. A group of penniless former Shaolin monks rekindle their love of kung fu by applying it to soccer.
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‘Shaolin Family Soccer’ (2004) imitates Mrs. Doubtfire
Shaolin Family Soccer is a movie whose title tries to ride the coat tails of Steven Chow’s popular Shaolin Soccer. One of the actors, Wong Yat Fei (aka Yut Fei Wong), is in both movies as a Shaolin monk who can head the ball with such force that he can rip the ball through the…
