After all the mounting hysteria among Sinophiles about how it would turn out — including a rumored retitling to “Kung-Fu Soccer” — Miramax’s cut and English-dubbed version of Stephen Chow’s blockbuster hit “Shaolin Soccer” keeps the ball respectfully in the park. Carefully retooled for general North American auds without greatly disturbing the shape of the original, this looks like it will score a few goals of its own when Miramax finally fields it next April. Version opened in France in late August to solid rather than headline business, suggesting the full-length Hong Kong version may be a better bet outside the U.S.
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Already a B.O. legend in its native Hong Kong, where it bowed in July 2001 and went on to gross an all-time, all-comers record of HK$60 million ($7.7 million), Chow’s fifth comedy on which he’s taken a directing credit is probably his best. In “God of Cookery,” he married culinary expertise with kung-fu; here, a raggedy group of Shaolin disciples, led by Steel Leg Sing (Chow), reunite to take on a dirty-tricks evil team coached by the dastardly Hung (former matinee idol Patrick Tse).
Pic preemed in Hong Kong in a 97-minute version, which Chow replaced with a much more satisfying 111-minute cut some three weeks later. (Both versions — long available on imported videodiscs — were reviewed in Variety, Oct. 8, 2001.) Miramax’s cut has used the longer version as its raw material, sensibly including material like the spontaneous song-and-dance at a steamed-bun stall, but not using the comic outtakes that closed the picture.
No major scenes are lost in this 86-minute version, which starts with fresh credit titles and seamlessly snips and tucks as it goes along. Overall result is a smooth, pacey pic with no downtime but shorn of many small, telling details: For example, the film originally opened with a quiet, atmospheric scene in a locker room, whereas it now opens mid-action on the soccer field. If Chow had made the film with U.S. finance, this is how it might have turned out.
As a result, it’s a kinetic audience-pleaser drained of its emotional content, especially with regard to its femme lead (Mainland star Vicki Zhao Wei), whose funny re-appearance in the second half, in grotesque clothes and makeup loses all its tragic clout in the now abbreviated sequence.
However, Raymond Wong’s heroic, mock-Bruce Lee score has thankfully been retained, with only a funky Carl Douglas song (“Kung-Fu Fighting”) slapped over the end titles.
Orientalists no doubt will be appalled at the mock-Chinglish dubbing but Miramax has cannily headed them off at the pass. Chow in fact does his own dubbing, with a characteristic Hong Kong accent, and China-born actress Bai Ling dubs Zhao, with a distinctive Mainland accent, thus ensuring a kind of linguistic purity. (Contempo story is set in China.) Other dubbers, largely Westerners, mimic accents between the two.
Effect is uncannily like watching a Hong Kong production from the ’70s, when chopsocky pics first hit the West in cut-and-revoiced versions. Lip-synch is all over the place, but it doesn’t matter: “Shaolin Soccer” is a fun movie, and partly spoofs pics of that period, so no harm is done.
