Siu lam juk kau (Shaolin soccer, Hong Kong, 2001)

This is a hilarious movie. Written, directed, and produced by the same person who is playing the hero: Stpehen Chow. I was fortunate enough to see the original 113 minute version and not the one that Miramax cut down (and mixed up) to 87 minutes for distribution in the US. The basic idea is a group of aging and mostly out of job ex-Shaolin students with the help of an also aging ex-soccer star play soccer using kung fu techniques. In a larger context it is about mixing the oriental and occidental cultures. The western one doesn’t come out well form this comparison.For example the hero immediately sees beauty of a woman’s hand movement as she is kneading dough as a street vendor. However that kind of beauty, emphasized with low-budget but still spectacular visual effect is “ruined by” her scarred face. I had to put the word ruined in quotation marks, because the hero still sees the real beauty inside her and is not blinded by her appearance. On the other hand at a much later point she ask him, whether this is love, that they feel. As far as I know the preoccupation with the concept, discovery and analysis of Love (with a capital L) is a western occupation, not inherent to the culture the movie is set in. She longs for something and her heart is broken at the “no” answer. The two cultures make a yin-yang like peace by the end. She turns from an ugly duckling to a stunning lady. (Stunning for those of us, who like women with shaved heads.) I haven’t scene enough action movies to be able to comment on the action scenes. I enjoyed the humor in the movie. Both visual, textual and action. However this last bit was a bit too hard core for me, as a person who detests to see violence. But it was stylized enough so I could bear it. I saw the movie as the first event of this academic year’s Arts and Lectures series (http://www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/ ) at UCSB. As such we filled halfway a chilly 860 seat auditorium. Film’s US website: http://miramax.com/shaolin_soccer/