Shaolin Soccer 少林足球 | Canadian First Time Watching | Movie Reaction | Movie Review | Commentary 

Finish this sentence: Shaolin Kung Fu plus __________ .

Shaolin Soccer introduced me to Stephen Chow. I am eternally grateful

From a westerner's perspective, I'd say "From Beijing With Love (1994)" is very accessible. Forbidden City Cop (1996) too. Flirting Scholar (1993) is Stephen Chow's best film IMO. There's a sort of short rap battle in it that will be impossible for a non-cantonese speaker to understand, but 90% of the film will be perfectly watchable for Simone.

The version I have always seen had the cut of Iron Shirt confessing his love to the husband and then telling him to pass on the message to the wife. It's always been the funniest line in the film for me.

I remember rewatching the heavily cut American version on my PSP. I didn't watch the cut parts till recently but it was still funny as hell. The "tell your wife I love her" bit was in the final cut which is interesting but I certainly loved it

The best part about Stephen Chow movies is how he completely subverts every major trope. Like the dramatic slow motion walk when Mui is going toward the goal and then she walks right into the goalpost.

Makes sense about static movement. I've heard how Akiro Kurosawa never makes a static shot, something's always moving. Hmm... Maybe you could react to some Kurosawa next? Man's a legend

I first watched this movie in spanish bc my dad was watching it. And i gotta say it is 10x funnier (if you understand Spanish tbh) but it’s also just so much more extra which I didn’t think was possible with this movie. But this is definitely one of my favorite movies to just watch ever. 😂

I live in Chile (south america) so, football (soccer) it's the biggest sport here. And i can tell you this breaks all the rules imagined haha. But! As an 80's kid, i grew up watching captain Tsubasa, so, watching this movie was as close as we got to a live action adaptation for that anime and i freaking loved it. Such fun memories of me and My Friends watching this over and over again. A truly CLASSIC!

I don't usually completely lose it when I watch comedies but that scene where the team goes into the shoe store and the guy without hesitation punches the clerk is one of the hardest times I have ever laughed in my life.

"Team Evil is a mistranslation. The name is actually Demon Team." As if that's any better! I'm so used to the dubbed version, so it's cool to see the original version of this comedy. "You're a Shaolin monk, Harry." That entire series would be epic, if that's what Hagrid said to him.

“Why do you look like ET?” The one line from this movie that I quote constantly. This movie is amazing.

I grew up watching this and other stephen chow movies with my brothers dubbed in portuguese. So cool to have some context for the things that don't translate that well and other nuances. I remember the first time I saw the singing scene I almost peed my pants.

I usually only watch reaction videos to movies I have seen (I may have seen this years ago but don't have any memory of it). However, I stayed because of how excited you both were to watch (and re-watch) the movie. Experiencing it with George is a treat!

I remember having to rewatch many parts of this movie because I was laughing so hard I couldn't read the subs (the soccer game turning into a warzone being the biggest culprit). A true symbiotic relationship, George not getting any music references and Simone not getting the movie references.

Donnie Yen just released his new movie Sakra and it's showing at my local cinemas. Maybe react to Donnie's kickass movies like Flashpoint, SPL/ Killzone or Dragon Tiger Gate? It going to be Chinese New Year tomorrow night. Pick more Chinese HK movies to react to. If you're looking for more Stephen Chow, try God of Cookery or a movie directed by him called Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, all great CNY movies to react to

Oh man, you gotta react to God Of Cookery after this

Cool reaction as always Simone & George, you both have a great weekend

Might I suggest viewing Red Cliff (2008 and 2009). Its not a comedy but the epicness of the battles scenes are unparalleled for me.

Watching you two reacting to movies is my guilty pleasure ❤

I always wanted to watch this as a kid but it was always gone at my local Blockbuster so I gave up after about a month of checking. I finally got to see this during quarantine and I enjoyed it a lot. I love odd stuff and I mean that in a nice way.

tidbit about the necktowels: most manual laborers in east asian countries have a towel around their neck to wipe sweat. i don't know if this custom still persists today

Had a bootleg copy when I was a kid growing up in Slovakia. Even though the subtitles were terrible, the movie was just so much fun. Always happy to see it. 🧡💛🧡

A little thing about the Goalie: So, the Yellow jumpsuit is an Homage to Bruce Lee's "Game of Death." However! The movie was unfinished before Bruce Lee's death, so they finished filming with a body double who wore incredibly large sunglasses to hide that it wasn't Bruce.

Ng Man Tat! Is he not one of the greatest supporting actors EVAR, bar none?? Love seeing that man act, and he could handle Chow's "nonsense" style perfectly. Very upset he wasn't in Kung Fu Hustle. This is one of my favorite movies of all time! Chow is amazing. Your subtitles vary from the ones I have, my version is less polished (and never watch the Gawd-awful Sony English release. They butchered it!)- I bought about 15 of these DVDs back in 2003 and sent them to all my friends and family. Everyone needs to see Shaolin Soccer!

Definitely react to From Beijing with Love someday.

It's great to have George bringing some culture input into this. I agree with him, I cannot watch a dubbed movie, lips move and a different sound comes out. I have watched Akira in Japanese, English and French, and there are variations that really are borderline unfaithful to the original material.

Ah, brings back memories. Early 2002, our high school advanced physics class senior year collectively spent a long weekend on a study retreat. No internet, somewhere on the countryside. Someone brought a "totally legit" CD (yes, CD, not DVD) with that movie, and a separate subtitle file. And no single one of us nerds that did bring along a laptop had a video player with subtitle file support installed. However I did happen to have a complete installation of Visual C++ with all SDKs and documentation. So I fired up DirectX graph edit, used it to generate a bare bones video player template, generated some C++ from that and then quick and dirty threw together a shotgun parser for the subtitle file, that would render on top of the video player window using plain GDI function, using the video overlay key color as background (legacy tech, nothing uses it these days anymore, thing about "green screen for video cards" to mix slow desktop graphics with a quickly updateable video buffer). After about 2 hours of bubblegum & spit coding, we could watch the movie. Good times!

Hey George, from a Westerner's perspective, the Stephen Chow films I loved were From Beijing with Love, Love on Delivery, The God of Cookery, Forbidden City Cop, Sixty Million Dollar Man, Out of the Dark and the two Royal Tramp movies. When you get back into things like the Fight Back to School movies, the humor is too based on wordplay and they just don't translate.

I usually prefer subtitles, but I have to say: brazilian dubbing is fantastic!

I saw this movie as a kid, thought I dreamed it and found it again years later. Love this movie so much. Never knew it had a dub but dubs on any live action just never sound right to me

A soccer team is 11 players maximum, one of them the goal keeper. 7 players minimum, that would be relevant if too many players get expelled (they are not replaced by a player on the bench. One player gets expelled, the team plays with only 10), or in case of injured players with no backup.

It's been two months since you posted this reaction. I'm wondering why I haven't seen it before. I'm enjoying reaction so far as this is one of my favorite movies. My Cantonese is not as good as I have no one to speak around me that speaks Cantonese. I look forward to your future reactions. When you mentioned Chinese people speaking different languages, I find that normal, too. I

Shaolin Soccer has to be one of my top ten favorite feel good movies.

I always thought this was a dream when I went back and tried to search for this movie and everyone I know didn’t know what it was when I was a kid.

I am an old guy and this is one of my favorite movies (Kung Fu Hustle as well). This movie led me to start watching KDramas (Wei Zhao was in a movie with a similar name as a KDrama movie and I watched the KDrama because I thought it was the movie).

Fun Fact: The song Stephen Chow sang in the beginning is called a "Mountain Song." It's a little racist, but refers to a old rural/tribal tradition of singing when performing physical labour of some sort, but there has been some reference to a time long past when men and women weren't allowed to speak to one another. To skirt this taboo, they would court each other by singing. It's a little racist/classist/regionalist since it refers to a serious cultural tradition of amongst rural tribes that were not always considered Han Chinese.

Stephen Chow has so many little touches to horror movies in his films. There was The shining homage in Kung Fu hustle and in this movie when he goes to get his brother in the nightclub, the first person shot is almost shot for shot the same one used for the first, (well technically second), kill in Friday the 13th. Also the version I saw of this when they did a test viewing at DragonCon 2001 actually had a matching Thriller sound-alike song and try as I might I've never found that copy.

Oh snap, one of my favorite martial arts movies of all time.

"It's the Lion King song!" well,.... the original tale of Kimba was Japanese, the Disney version was basically Kimba meets Hamlet.

I'm one of those people with self-esteem issues. You can see the hurt look in her eyes even though she laughed. No one wants to be made fun of when they put in so much effort.

A while back, some of my students were showing me this 3DS game they were playing called "Inazuma Eleven." It was basically Shaolin Soccer the game with all kinds of crazy special attacks. It didn't look very fun because tbh all the cutscenes were essentially just time-wasters, but watching them play brought back Shaolin Soccer memories from childhood (not of Chinese or related descent, but had a relative who LOVED Stephen Chow and would mail us VHS's of a bunch of his films).

Uh, George, I have trained in Shaolin kung fu, but not in a monastery, and I definitely don't consider myself to be a monk. So you might want to think of some qualifiers there next time.

Brilliant film, my introduction to Steven Chow, I got mine from a chinese dvd website site not long after it came out as you could not get it in England. This seems a different cut from mine or if it isnt I dont remember some of the scenes in it. I will have to watch mine again. Fantastic film, thanks for reacting to it and spreading the word of Steven Chow movies. take care

"BRILLIANT, BLOODY BRILLIANT HARRY!" lol

i love laughing at you guys(i mean WITH you guys! lol)

I believe each team needs at least 11 players on the field.

Yeah, I watched this movie long ago, I like the movie very much. Most countries who love soccer or futbol love this movie.

3:00 thank you for point this out, I know whoever does the subs has to take some liberties to get the meaning across but I feel it leaves a lot to be desired. It makes a lot more sense for a team to be called "Devils" or "Demons" without the obviousness of calling a team "Evil" outright.

God I loved coaching 9-10 year old kids soccer. They were there for pure desire to play, and learn to play good, better, best. Those kids were so excellent, I've never been prouder of any work I've done. Special shout-out to the greatest goalie I've ever seen in real life. I always think of you as "Stonewall". Best wishes, Scotty, wherever you may be now.

soccer team has to put 11 players on the field to start the game but the game can continue as long as there are at least 8

George's comment regarding Wei Zhao made me wonder if he had watched the Corey Yuen movie So Close

19:12 The car mechanic is really reasonable.🤣🤣🔨🔧🛠️

This is one of my fav Stephen Chow movies, another one that I find it equally funny is God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai, which Stephen Chow replaces Chow Yun Fatt as the main character in the comedic twist to the God of Gamblers series

Stephen Chow is a legend! I love his movies, so good.

I love this movie because it makes me think of Tsubasa Champions in real life.

Awrsome ! Simone and george now you have to do chows journey into the west movie!!! I like with these type you guys do when george gives little Chinese facts on scenes

The suit their goalie is wearing is a reference to Bruce Lee's costume in Game of Death.

FYI, Shaolin Soccer was heavily inspired by a 80' - 90' manga/anime : Captain Tsubasa

"he looks like an accountant" 3 years later, he played as an accountant in Kung Fu Hustle (the angry dude at the tram)

Mr. Vampire!! and Shaolin Vs Lama are classics. Simone, just so you know, I went around counting how many batteries I have and it's 18. :)

You guys should do more Chinese/Hong Kong cinema, lots of great gems to show Simone.

36:49 Ah yes, Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern, excellent clean!

13:00 Can confirm, have ADHD, basically live my life like it's been choreographed like this movie, for better or worse. lmao

The cast of this movie, Zhao Wei and the entire Stephen Chow group are the only people I would care getting an autograph from, oh and a picture with them. They are so fucking epic in every movie they’re in. They’re my avengers.

"Simone, George... ehhgh.." I felt that

This is a childhood classic for me

YESSSSSSS NO WAY YALL REACTING TO THIS!!!

I grew up watching this movie also. I didn't know the name because I saw it dubbed in Spanish Latino. I always thought it was hilarious and awesome.

Coming from the Crouching Tiger review to this was certainly a twist. Did not expect this to have the superior love story though.

OMG I never noticed, George does look a lot like Ng Man Tat. Must be in the genes!

George what would you recommend for me to do to improve my spoken English?

Are you including batteries currently in use, or just spares? Also, does this include non-removable batteries? I want to give you the answer, I just need to know how!!! 😁😁😁

If you ever want to see where they got most of the soccer visual gags for this, check the anime Captain Tsubasa.

The subtitles have improved since I last saw this movie, although I do miss some of the absurd translations of the old '00s ones. "Are we being quite brutal?"

I’m guessing this is an extended (or “not edited”) version? So many scenes I don’t remember.

Ive been waiting so long for kung Fu hustle 2

just realised they use this dance in kungfu hustle

YAY I've been waiting all week

I LOVED this movie as a kid. I always described as DBZ soccer. lol

Great Reaction

To hell with accessible - continue the Stephen Chow kick and watch A Chinese Odyssey parts 1 and 2, with George pausing every ten seconds to explain all the inexplicable references

What a fun, crazy movie. Stephen Chow is so awesome!

I'd just like to point out the resemblance between Simone's appearance in the thumbnail to Alice Cooper. YIKES!😆

Have you guys watched Kung Pow: Enter the Fist yet? I highly recommend if you like these kind of films.

I love most Stephen Chow films. I know there are jokes I won't get because of culture and I know there jokes that can only be appreicated by fluent Cantonese speakers. But I still love and I still get so much from them.

NEXT: 50/50 (2011)

with current cost of eggs....that scene made me cry

I miss late 90's and 2000's HK cinema I'm off to watch me some Young and Dangerous

So do they not get together at the end in this cut?

Gotta respect a man in a Mr. Sparkle shirt

Love this movie! Great!

I actually met the woman that played the love interest in this movie when I was in China. She was nice, she knew some English but not a lot. I was 12 at the time. My dad was asked to play a Russian in a couple scenes in a mini series. His role was basically to look angry in one scene and not speak then look happen in another scene while also not speaking. Funnily enough, we never got to see the show and the people that made it forgot to tell us the name of the show. So my dad appeared on Chinese TV occasionally. I don't think he got paid for it either.

What would you recommend on how to learn another language? 🤔

Watching subbed is absolutely the right move

ok in Italy they dub it with different accent from many region to give the same vibes as the og acting

You have to watch Kung Fu Hustle and God of Cookery !

George really don't get football hahahaha, you can see when he said people would be watching the most boring game ever because there was no goals, what he fails to realize is that a game with dozens of amazing defenses by the goalkeepers, that ends 1-0, with acrobatics, injuries, awesome plays, is the definition of an amazingly exciting game, specially if it's the final match of the tournament, you can't ask for more, watching games with huge scores can be a lot of fun, but games with evenly matched opponents that will die to not let the other score is the only way to get an epic game.

its so wierd hearing george saying he grew up with this movie it makes me feel so old

Nice reaction