In Shaolin Soccer, Chow plays a Shaolin kung fu expert who leads a team of martial artists to victory in a football tournament. The combination of kung fu, football and special effects is invigorating to watch.
Each of the martial artists in Shaolin Soccer’s football team brings a special style to the game.
“The martial arts ability of each actor was determined by the position that they played on the team,” Chow told Kung Fu Magazine.
“The goalkeeper is someone who needs to catch and grab the ball, so it was natural to choose a style of kung fu that required the use of the hands. You use your whole body in soccer, so you can choose a martial arts skill that’s specifically related to the feet, or [another part of] the body, and fit it to players in soccer positions on the field,” Chow said.
Chow used the traditional martial arts forms as a base, and then let his imagination run wild, says expert on Asian film Frank Djeng.
“Shaolin Soccer was partially based on the hugely popular Japanese manga series Captain Tsubasa. So it’s a given that the martial arts depicted in the film would not be the traditional kind, but more an anime/manga-inspired and greatly enhanced by visual effects. They’re filled with CGI and physics-defying moves,” notes Djeng.
“Real, traditional martial arts action is mostly absent, as both the good and the bad guys’ superpower-like abilities are depicted via wirework and visual effects.
“For instance, Danny Chan Kwok-kwan’s Bruce Lee-like goalie can turn a furious fastball into a furious leopard! It’s a great blend of real-world football tactics and video-game-like fantasy action,” Djeng says.
Chow wanted Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle to look new to help win back viewers for Hong Kong films, says Tim Youngs, an expert on Hong Kong films based in Brisbane, Australia.
“By the late 1990s, Hong Kong cinema was regularly derided at home as cheap and low-quality, and film-goers increasingly chose Hollywood flicks instead.
“Hong Kong filmmakers were trying their hand at CGI-heavy pictures to woo audiences, and Chow took his time to find clever local uses for the technology, first using it to fuse kung fu and sport for Shaolin Soccer, and then updating classic cinema for Kung Fu Hustle,” says Youngs.
Chow also had his eye on the international audience.
“Boosting the martial arts side of things was a big plus, as kung fu cinema has a built-in audience worldwide,” Youngs says.
Miramax botched the distribution of Shaolin Soccer in the US, but Columbia, the US studio which co-produced Kung Fu Hustle, worked hard to make the latter a hit.
Kung Fu Hustle was a homage to the martial arts genre. Chow had wanted to become a martial artist as a child, and had trained in wing chun kung fu under famed master Wong Shun-leung for three months, but he could not afford to continue his lessons.
Although he had made comic kung fu films before like Royal Tramp, he felt that Kung Fu Hustle gave him the chance to play at being a real kung fu star.
The film focuses on a large, 1950s-style apartment complex in which the inhabitants must defend themselves against an axe-wielding gang. “I grew up in a place like that,” Chow says in the production notes.
“You think you know everything about the neighbourhood, but there is much that is hidden under the surface.
“One day, I discovered that a neighbour of mine was a martial arts master. I called him ‘old uncle’, and never imagined him to be a great master – but he was.”
Chow packed the cast of Kung Fu Hustle with martial artists from the past. Venerable actor Yuen Wah plays the landlord, and the landlady, usually shown in curlers and chomping on a cigarette, was played by Yuen Qiu, a martial arts actress who had trained in Yu Jim-yuen’s famed China Drama Academy Chinese opera school.
Yuen Qiu had not been in a film for almost 20 years, and Kung Fu Hustle restarted her career.
Notable martial arts actor Fung Hak-on has a role as a murderous zither player. Bruce Leung Siu-lung, who made a name for himself as a Bruce Lee clone after the master’s death, plays a villain known as the Beast. The film also features veterans Dung Chi-wa and Chiu Chi-ling.
“Kung Fu Hustle pays tribute to many famous kung fu film veterans from the 1970s by featuring actors and stars who were all real martial artists in their own right,” says Djeng.
Chow said he got the ideas for the action scenes from his memories of 1960s Hong Kong television series. But the action in Kung Fu Hustle changes as the film unspools, notes Djeng.
“In all of the fight sequences up to the friendly bout between Dung Chi-wa, Chiu Chi-ling and Xing Yu, real Chinese martial arts were featured, with just little wirework assistance,” says Djeng.
“Once Yuen Woo-ping took over action choreography, there’s a clear and obvious change in how the martial arts was shown on screen – they veer towards supernatural and fantasy, with the assistance of the visual effects.
“There is a clear transition of the martial arts style from the more traditional ‘real world’ martial arts choreographed by Hung, with the various styles represented as they were shown in the old-school films, to the more ‘fictionalised’ martial arts choreography of Yuen,” says Djeng.
Although both films were hits, Chow reduced his filmmaking output after the release of Kung Fu Hustle, and did not release another one until 2008’s CJ7.“Part of it was Chow shifting to only directing his own films, and not starring in films by other directors,” says Youngs. “But there was also a general slowdown in Hong Kong cinema, along with the need for longer time frames when making mega-budget productions.
“Chow’s earlier films could be rushed from concept to release, with the writing even happening on the set. But Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle resulted from heaps of preparation, and Chow has kept to that approach ever since.
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser known aspects of the industry.
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