With World Cup fever reaching a breaking point around the globe, Hong Kong director Stephen Chow has one more play. Two decades after he last graced us with soccer comedy of cartoonish proportions, Shaolin Soccer, Chow returns to the field with Kung Fu Soccer, a new football comedy that won’t get a red card for breaking the laws of physics.
Released earlier today, the first trailer is light on plot but heavy on the anti-gravity slapstick. However, the lack of plot does leave some room for speculation, raising the question: Is this a sequel to 2003’s Shaolin Soccer? Making things even more confusing, its U.S. title, according to IMDb (so take it with a grain of salt), is Shaolin Women’s Soccer. Still, it appears to be a wholly separate soccer comedy, this time focusing on an all-female football squad, the Emei Women’s Football Team, as it competes for the “Supreme Invincible Cup.” Maybe it’s set in the same cinematic universe?
Chow is a now-legendary action-comedy director, whose global blockbusters include Kung Fu Hustle and The Mermaid. His last film, The New King Of Comedy, a remake of his 1999 film, The King Of Comedy, grossed more than $100 million in 2019. The film is slated to release in China and Singapore this summer. Per Variety, the film was conceived as a multi-language release, including English, so we assume a more robust release is on the way.
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