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Stephen Chow’s zany fusion of soccer and kung fu is an improbable winner. The leading lady has a grotesque skin condition, the leading man has the most pathetic pony tail in cinematic history (Steven Seagal included), and in between there’s a pair of bearded soccer babes who can bend it better than Beckham. Chow, who wrote the script as well as directing, is a Shaolin kung fu instructor who makes more of a living picking bottles from trash barrels. Sing is recruited by a disgraced former soccer star (Man Tat Ng) to play on a squad of misfits with the hope of winning the national championship. What ensues is something between Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Longest Yard, with the big showdown coming against Team Evil — who are all jacked up on "American drugs." Funny, raw, and irreverent, Chow’s high-kicking high jinks suggest more a Jackie Chan clown than a Bruce Lee avenger — though Lee is Sing’s idol. At times the film even breaks into song and dance, and the scenes of Shaolin parallel parking are uproarious, but nothing will prepare you for the full-on French kiss as a player forcibly extracts an egg yolk from a teammate’s mouth. In Cantonese with English subtitles. (87 minutes)
BY TOM MEEK
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