Shaolin Soccer Tamil Name
Stephaine Zitzow
Sing is the main protagonist of the 2001 Hong Kong Stephen Chow's film, Shaolin Soccer. He is a Shaolin Monk who wants to promote Shaolin Kung Fu to the people. After meeting a famous soccer coach, he decides to promote Kung Fu through soccer. After enlisting his Shaolin brothers to join, the team, they win the Hong Kong Open Cup tournament against Team Evil.
Both men reach a consensus to form a soccer team specializing in shaolin, each with a mutual purpose: Fung seeks revenge against Hung, while Sing uses the sport as both a vessel for his discipline and a way to promote kung fu to the world. To this end, the latter sets about finding his five brothers (not biological brothers, but his fellow disciple brothers that all studied under the same master), all possessors of unique physical abilities. All of his brothers have since given up on Shaolin and are in similarly disgraced predicaments as Fung. After initially rejecting Sing's pleas, the brothers get together to form Team Shaolin. When it's revealed that Sing and the rest of the team barely knows anything about soccer and that Sing is the only one that retained his Shaolin abilities, Fung just about gives up with them. However, during their first match against Team Rebellion, the remaining five brothers re-awaken their Shaolin powers, quickly turning the match in their favor. They also proceed to wow the members of Team Rebellion, a gang of bullies led by a member of the mob. The defeated members of Team Rebellion requested to join Team Shaolin, to which they happily obliged. They would go on to recruit more members from other teams along the way.
Fung enters the team into the China Super Cup in Hong Kong, where they make it to the finals after a series of consecutive and hilariously one-sided matches. There, they run into Team Evil, a powerful team headed by none other than Hung, who is also using his position as chairman of the National Soccer League to rig the tournament in his favor. The members of Team Evil have been injected with performance-enhancing drugs, granting them physical abilities equal to or perhaps even greater than Team Shaolin.
Martial arts, sports, and comedic pratfall violence, most of it exaggerated. A rival team shows up to play soccer armed with wrenches and hammers and uses them on the heads, legs, and bodies of the opposing team. While playing this team, the scene briefly switches to the lead character dressed like a soldier with a machine gun fighting in a wartime battle. A player's leg is broken by a cheating team. Soccer games turn into a mix of soccer and martial arts kicks and punches. A man has bottles broken over his thick head. Soccer balls are kicked with such power they knock over players or even throw them backwards several feet. A character mentions suicide as a response to humiliation.
Cigarette smoking, cigar smoking. Rival team is injected with performance-enhancing drugs. Character shuffles down a busy street disheveled and drinking a beer. Champagne drinking. Drinking in a bar. A character suffers a hangover.
Parents need to know that Shaolin Soccer is a 2001 sports comedy in which a ragtag group of soccer and martial arts misfits join forces to create a winning soccer team. The movie has some comic violence and crude humor, including a scene of a man peeing on a wall, and another man vomiting. There's some action/fantasy violence, and characters are wounded. While much of the violence is exaggerated for the sake of comedy and/or action, scenes of players getting legs broken by cheating rival teams also occur. Characters smoke and drink, and there's a reference to "American drugs," which are performance-enhancing drugs injected into one of the rival teams. A character mentions suicide as a response to humiliation. There's a joke about being in love with a married woman. A character removes his pants (off camera) and makes another character wear his underpants on his head to humiliate him. Profanity includes "s--t," "hell." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
When former soccer superstar "Golden Leg" Fung sees Sing demonstrating Shaolin in the streets, he realizes the guy has what it takes to be a great soccer player. Sing (Stephen Chow) dreams of a world based on the principles of Shaolin. He realizes that becoming a soccer champion by using Shaolin techniques could bring his message to the masses. So, Sing agrees to help Fung start a team, and they invite Sing's brothers to form a team to play SHAOLIN SOCCER. At first, they suffer humiliating defeat. When they register for the big tournament, the owner of Fung's arch-nemesis team, Team Evil, laughs at them. But then the games begin. The Shaolin team's magical leaps and kicks bring them to the final round, where they must face Team Evil. But when the goalie is injured, who will replace him?
The most successful Hong Kong film ever, this is a very traditional underdog sports team story told in a delightfully nontraditional style, with whimsy, fantasy, and heart. Shaolin Soccer is pure silly fun with such wonderful spirit that even the dumbest jokes and most predictable developments seem brighter.
The film's visual imagination and effervescent good spirits are pure delight. A group of Chinese people spontaneously break into a dance number to the Kool and the Gang song "Celebration." Soccer players fly through the sky and kick the ball the length of the field. A sweet bun maker (that is, a sweet maker of sweet buns) uses kung fu to mix the flour and gets fired when the buns get sour after her tears fall into the batter. And the hero tells the heroine she is beautiful before her makeover.
Families can talk about "underdog" movies. How does Shaolin Soccer compare to other movies in which characters who don't fit in or seem destined to lose to their seemingly more skilled or talented rivals find a way to emerge victorious? Why do these movies have such appeal across a wide variety of styles and genres?
Both men reach a consensus to form a football team specializing in shaolin, each with a mutual purpose: Fung seeks revenge upon Hung, while Sing uses the sport as a vessel for his discipline. To this end the latter sets about finding his five brothers, all possessors of unique physical strengths, but have since given up on shaolin and are in similarly disgraced predicaments as Fung. After initially rejecting Sing's pleas, the brothers get together to form Team Shaolin. They also proceed to wow the members of Team Rebellion, a gang of bullies led by a member of the mob, with their skills, recruiting them to their cause.
Fung enters the team in the China Super Cup in Hong Kong, where they run into Team Evil, a steroid-fueled team headed by none other than Hung, who is also using his position as chairman of the National Soccer League to rig the tournament in his favor.
Hong Kong superstar Stephen Chow directed the movie and played the main character. The movie became the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong's history in 2001 and won the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Funny, over the top, slapstick, and filled with amazing CGI effects, it was the first Stephen Chow film that gained the attention of mainstream Western audiences.
Sing is Shaolin Monk who wants to promote Shaolin Kung Fu to the people. After meeting a famous soccer coach, he decides to promote Kung Fu through soccer. After enlisting his Shaolin brothers to join, the team, they win the Hong Kong Open Cup tournament against Team Evil.
Speed: Hypersonic (Kept pace with the Team Evil players, who kicked a soccer ball so fast that it caught on fire. One of his allies could move fast enough to leave afterimages, while thrown shoes seem frozen in air)
Shaolin Soccer, however, became one of the most well-known of the Ng-Chow collaborations. Directed by Chow, the 2001 comedy film starred Ng as Golden Leg Fung, a jaded soccer star who helps bring an unlikely troupe of powerful outsiders, named Team Shaolin, to glory.
This strange movie stars and is directed by Hong Kong comedy legend Stephen Chow and his usual co-star Ng Man-tat. Chow plays a kung fu master named Sing and Man-tat plays a grungy former soccer star known as Golden Leg, who is crippled from a fan attack during his playing career. Golden Leg implores him to create a soccer team, and he fills it out with his five brothers (all with shaolin powers) and members of a local street gang.
Golden Leg trains the brothers on an abandoned field, where they all learn rudimentary soccer skills. They have a scrimmage against a street gang that eventually turns into a brawl. In this scene Sing pulls out a gun and an army helmet and begins firing shots at the opposing team. This turned out to be a dream, but Golden Leg teaches him a valuable lesson.
Golden Leg signs the team up for the Chinese Supercup tournament, which Team Evil, coached by his arch nemesis, Hung, has won five years in a row. The team decimates its competition using shaolin powers, like most ridiculous kung-fu movies, to beat teams by 40 goals in most games.
Sing (Stephen Chow) is a Shaolin kung fu student who wants to bring Shaolin kung fu to the public, but doesn't know to do it. He meets Fung, a former soccer star, and they form a soccer team with Sing's kung fu brothers. The team uses their kung fu skills on the soccer field in the National Soccer Tournament.
SHAOLIN SOCCER is Stephen Chow's first film after taking a two-year break, and it doesn't disappoint. Not only did he star in it, but also wrote and directed it. It is entertaining, both comically and the soccer matches are fun to watch. There are lots of funny parts from everyone in the film, there's even a song and dance number. Sing meets Mui, a girl who uses tai chi to make sweet steamed buns. Sing, Mui, and the rest of the team aren't a glamorous bunch, which is funny in itself. Iron Head gets a yellow card in his first game for smoking. The soccer matches are fun to watch as the players use the kung fu skills like iron head, hooking leg, weight vest, and Chow's mighty steel leg. The end has the Shaolin Soccer team up against the Evil Team, cool name, as both teams show off their skills. There are plenty of CGI effects in the movie all used in the soccer scenes. They're used for bodies flying, ball effects, and effects used in the attacks, like shock waves, flames, etc. Sometimes they do look like CGI, but overall they look good. SHAOLIN SOCCER is a funny, entertaining movie. Don't think, just watch. And after sitting on Miramax's blood caked butchering shelf for almost two years, SHAOLIN SOCCER will finally be hitting US theaters in early August (in a highly edited version). Even white folks will like it apparently!
Now it is no secret that Stephen Chow is a fan of Bruce Lee. He starred in the Bruce Lee send-up FIST OF FURY 1991 (hey, how come we don't have a review of that?) and credits Bruce Lee as being his cinematic hero. Chow brings this fondness to his most recent project SHAOLIN SOCCER in the hilarious form of Empty Hands (Chan Kwok Kwan), the team goalie and wannabe stock broker. During the encounter with Karen Mok's team (dubbed "the most powerful team"), the goalie first appears as the likeness of Bruce Lee. Sporting a yellow jump suit with a black stripe a la GAME OF DEATH, he thumbs his nose, screams and does all the stances just like Bruce Lee. All the while protecting the goal! There is also a great bit at the end where the goalie is injured and taken off the field. While on the stretcher, he puts on the Lee sunglasses, it's classic! Chan really looks like Bruce and should be applauded for getting the moves down. Hands down, this character in SHAOLIN SOCCER is one of the funniest send-ups of Bruce Lee ever and definitely deserves a brief mention as a shining comedic spot of "Bruceploitation."
Reviewed mostly by William, and a little bit by Keith.