Blog Archives

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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Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

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Hai-yah!!! If I was 10 and watched this film I would have high-kicked my way out of the cinema. But as a, *ahem*, mature and none-too-lithe adult… I just made do with imagining I was high-kicking.

Although I didn’t kick and punch my way out of the cinema, I can understand how Stephen Chow felt when he saw his first Bruce Lee film. If this was the feeling he was trying to recreate for his audience, his effort is not … (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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