Brief Story Line
Story began with the introduction of various teams competing for the Asian women's soccer tournament which included the 7 times champion Taiga and other experienced team like Jinlong, Ehwa plus newcomer Emei. As a team that consisted of practically nobody, Emei were obviously looked down. However their captain Shuang (Zhang Xiaofei - YOLO, Hi,Mom etc) and her best friend Jade (Dilraba Dilmurat - Mr. Pride Vs. Ms. Prejudice, The Long Ballad TV series etc) who played as striker were very confident of themselves and adamant to prove they could go on to win the championship.
With the support from their old friend/mentor Xu Feng (Lay Zhang - A Legend, The Island etc) who was assigned by their grandmistress (Carina Lau - Warriors of Future, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame etc) to assist the team, Emei started to change people's opinion with their unconventional strength and ability. But things did not really go smoothly with various challenges including the internal fights and unexpected turn of event.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
As fan of Shaolin Soccer which was released back in 2021 and had plenty of hilarious comedy from the actor/director Stephen Chow, I was obviously interested to see this one said to be the spritual sequel since it told the story of completely different people with just similar topic of underdog soccer team playing in the tournament using Kung Fu as their strength. In this movie, the trade mark absurd comedy from Stephen Chow were still aparrent (which I better let you see for yourselves) and those physic defying soccer movements were also shown in here.
In term of story, this one was definitely not Chow's best work especially compared to his classic works like Kung Fu Hustle or his biggest Box Office film to date The Mermaid. The movie immediately started with the championship and team introduction without so much of background story. Yes there were few flashback scenes to give some context but my wife and I thought it would have been better if there was some story of how the team was formed or how they managed to be in the tournament. It seemed Chow was more interested in just getting in on the action and showed the soccer matches. Don't get us wrong though, they were still pretty hilarious and the emotion especially during the latter stages were still felt strongly as we root for this team. But we would have enjoyed it more if the story telling was more coherent.
Now most of the cast were practically unknown to me and particularly my wife who very seldom watch Chinese movies or series. But aside from the above names, there were few special appearances of familiar faces to us like Takeru Satoh (Rurouni Kenshin: The Final, First Love TV series etc) as Taiga's coach and Jimmy O. Yang (Interior Chinatown mini series, Love Hard etc) as stadium personnel. In addition, there were also support cast like Sisley Choi (Keeper of Darkness, Legal Mavericks 2020 TV series etc) as the blind physician Ziba, Qin Peng Fei as Emei team's cook and several who portrayed Emei team members such as Ai Mi (The Double TV series, Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force etc) as Chu San, newcomers Xue Ye as Snowy & Angel Woo as the girl who apologized all the time Sang Biao and few others. From various sources I found that this movie was co-written and co-directed with Chow's frequent collaborator Lam Tze Chung who also played one of the character in Shaolin Soccer and other Chow's movies like CJ7 and Kung Fu Hustle.
This movie had a duration of 1 hour 46 minutes which mainly consist of the internal dynamics of Emei team including the difficult relationship between their two senior players Shuang and Jade (aka Yu Long) and also with their mentor Xu Feng, plus the obvious main part the soccer matches. Although there were few things that did not exactly comply with the real soccer match (like the returning of injured player in one match and other things), but since we already knew those were not the major points, I chose to disregard them and just focus on the comedic moments. Btw there was no mid or post end credit scene here but I was surprised to see there were a lot of visual effects team including one that had many of Indonesian names (did not catch the company's name). And before the credit rolls there was an iteresting brief scene which my wife and I liked.
Overall this was another Stephen Chow's comedy film that was strictly for fun and should not be taken too seriously. As I said above, this one did not have the best editing and story telling (felt a bit like combination of several scenes that were rather forced plucked together). However my wife and I still enjoyed his classic comedic scenes that managed to make us laugh out loud (that scene involving Ziba and the Emei's chairman was just totally hilarious). But if you want to compare with the original 2001 movie, this one was not as complete and even less so if you compared with his other better works. So if you are feeling nostalgic and just want to see Chow's latest work then by all means just go to the cinema and see this and enjoy it like my wife and I did. But if you are not customary to his comedic style or expecting a very well written sport comedy movie, then this might not satisfy you. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment