Saw this last night, the last night of its solitary-week run in suburban Connecticut. Not sure if this is gonna continue its trek to suburbia or is just content to going straight to video.

A very silly movie. It's the perfect venue to introduce tween & teen males to subtitled films. The first twenty minutes of the film are a chore, especially as the cast does an impromptu dance to the beats of Kool-and-the-Gang's "Celebration." Say what??

I'm very pleased that the best parts of the film were not given away by the trailers. There were some nice touches, like having Team Evil's owner played by someone who resembles iconic producer Robert Evans.

Also interesting to figure out why it was delayed for so long. Watching it, I thought it interesting that while the characters all speak Chinese, the writings were all in English, nary a chinese character in sight. This was seemless throughout, and scenes must have been altered digitally, or new cuts had to have been made specifically for the English-release. Of course the songs were probably redone as well.

Lastly, and this is where it can be about faith--a central theme of the film is the lead protagonist's desire to spread the gospel of Shaolin to the masses, his early failed attempts to do so, and his conviction that Shaolin is very appropriate for making one's life better in all walks of life... kinda like "Shaolin Eye for the Straight Guy". I kinda find it interesting that here was an example of a proselytization film that gets its point across even though it uses comic exaggeration and crazy special effects to do so.

I think, comparing this to Evangelical proselytization films, or secular films about Evangelical proselitization, we have either a heavy handed tract where everything is at stake (which, well, _is_), or an ironic jab to proselytize the proselytizers, because... ho, ho, ho... we ALL know better, don't we?

I'm wondering if it's possible to do a good-natured, "light" proseltyization film from the Evangelical context. Certainly worth asking.

Nick

opus wrote:
: I wonder if the reason for this is because Shaolin is much more integrated within
: Chinese culture. In other words, you don't see the same sort of separation
: between the Shaolin circle and the rest of the culture like you do between
: Evangelical subcultures and the culture at large.

So would it be fair to say this film's promotion of Shaolin is less like current evangelical films, and more like those religious films that came out in the 1950s like A Man Called Peter (about a Scottish minister who came to America and became the U.S. Senate chaplain)?

Not sure what this adds to the discussion at hand, but thought I'd throw it out anyway. When Shaolin Soccer was first released, IIRC, it actually ran into a bit of trouble because authorities thought it poked too much fun at Shaolin (I couldn't find any articles to back that up, but I'll keep digging). Which I find somewhat odd, considering that Asian cinema is full of over-the-top monk characters, as well as evil monks (All Men Are Brothers: Blood of the Leopard, Iron Monkey, Chinese Ghost Story, etc.). Perhaps it was the film's gall to apply Shaolin techniques, powers, etc. to mundane events (like parking your car or not slipping on a banana peel).

Of course, the film still went to become the most profitable HK film ever, grossing HK$60 million (US$7.7 million) locally.