I recall when I
was in university, this was the movie to see back in 2002. But now, watching it
again, I can barely keep my eyes open. I still enjoyed the over-the-top CGI and
the unbelievable football (or soccer) being played, but in the end, watching this
movie now in 2020, I can't remember what I liked about it then.
Nothing has
changed. I recall the plot being very out there, making no sense at all, and
the over-the-top effects. But what I didn't recall was the bad pacing in the
movie. I guess when you're young, sometimes these things don't matter. The
pacing is so poorly done that it's hard to keep your excitement up. Then the
exaggerated CGI is best enjoyed once. Watching it again and seeing it flung
around with reckless abandon just bored the hell out of me.
The movie starts with an introduction to a disgraced soccer hero, Fung, who allowed his greed and fame to get into his head and made an enemy of the wrong kind. Now, he's working for someone who once idolized him. A series of events leads to him losing his job, and he meets Sing, a Shaolin Kung Fu master, who asks him to come enroll for Kung Fu training. Sing is an out-of-work man living on the streets, so his marketing for Kung Fu training doesn't go down well with Fung.
Later, Fung sees
Sing beat up some men using a soccer ball and Kung Fu. This gets Fung's
attention, and knowing about a football competition with a huge prize money,
Fung decides to get Sing and form a football team to win the money. Sing
agrees, but to form the team, he decides to enroll his other Kung Fu brothers,
each with their own unique specialty.
Together, they
form a football team, which, after much training, is good enough to enter the
competition.
So, maybe I
overhyped my childhood memory of this film. Or maybe because back then we
watched movies like this in a group, whatever it was that made me remember this
movie as a hit is gone now. This movie was the bomb in the past, and I should
have left it there.
Watching it
again just helped me get a nice rest and took me longer to watch the entire
movie because I had to skip back to where I recall stopping. If I were to base
this paragraph on how this movie made me feel back then, I would say Stephen
Chow deserves all the accolades he got for the movie’s production. Hey, he
wrote, starred in, and directed the movie.
The movie was a
critical and commercial success, but if I were to review it based on what I
know today, the rating of 5/10 is this high because of the nostalgic effect it
had on me.
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