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Shaolin Soccer (2001)

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I can just imagine how one day, this strange idea suddenly crossed filmmaker Stephen Chow’s mind: what would happen if I combine martial arts and soccer to make a ‘sports movie’? He must have thought it was a good idea, and went on to realise it. And he was absolutely right. The result was Shaolin Soccer, one of the funniest and most original films ever made, in Hong Kong and in fact anywhere in the world.

Shaolin Soccer tells … (read more)

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New Legend of Shaolin (1994)

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This is a pretty enjoyable Jet Li action vehicle as handled by Wong “I’ll do anything to entertain you” Jing. Because of the Wong factor, Li’s usual heroics are placed alongside various lowbrow comic set pieces (it’s just not a Wong Jing film without a fart gag), left field craziness (the villain drives a Chinese batmobile) and borrowed ideas: it steals liberally from Lone Wolf and Cub and other Li films like Fong Sai Yuk and Once Upon A Time (read more)

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God of Cookery (1996)

I keep reading that #1 Hong Kong box office star Stephen Chow is the master of the Cantonese pun, and that if you don’t speak Cantonese, then you just won’t get him.

Well, all those writers can go boil their heads.

Chow is also the master of slapstick, send-up, sight gag and silly expressions. He knows funny, and the perfect introduction to his wild makes-no-sense comic style is God of Cookery.

He plays (of course) the God of Cookery, … (read more)

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