Surprisingly announced just one month before its release, Kung Fu Soccer (2026) grossed over 260 million RMB (38 million USD) on its opening day, surging past 2.1 billion RMB (310 million USD) within three weeks. The film quickly secured its place as China’s second-highest-grossing release of the year. The craze was driven by none other than the King of Comedy, Stephen Chow, whose name alone was enough to draw audiences across the country. 

It has been seven years since Stephen Chow‘s last directorial effort, The New King of Comedy (2019). Despite the film’s polarising reception, his status as one of Chinese cinema’s most influential filmmakers has never been in doubt. An irreplaceable figure in the country’s popular culture, Chow’s timeless comedies continue to live on in the memory of the audience, with many of his most iconic scenes and lines still frequently quoted and referenced today. 

Kung Fu Soccer operates on the premise of reworking the martial arts-meets-football trope of Shaolin Soccer (2001) in the world of women’s football. Whereas the spiritual predecessor tells the story of a team of Shaolin kung fu practitioners fighting their way out of poverty, this iteration centers on the E Mei Women’s Football Team.

In Shaolin Soccer, the underprivileged suffered under the agonising livelihood that clutched their throats. When life was no longer an option, they played football to salvage their last shred of dignity. Shaolin Soccer is remembered for its sympathetic characters and a plot filled with humanistic care. The famous quote, “What’s the difference between a person without a dream and a salted fish?” persists as a mantra for those who pursue their dreams. In Kung Fu Soccer, the film introduces the E Mei women’s football team as goofy, disunited, and underestimated, yet they effortlessly win their first match. The stakes feel drastically reduced because the characters’ background stories, internal motivations, and initial skill levels remain frustratingly vague at the start.

The film’s comedy relies heavily on quirky behaviour and excessive physical banter. It may still carry Stephen Chow’s style, but it consequently renders the characters more like caricatures than flesh-and-blood athletes. The jokes in Shaolin Soccer are controlled, unexpected and impeccably timed; here, they simply overflow. While Shaolin Soccer delivers its humour with heart, using comedy to highlight social absurdities, Kung Fu Soccer tries too hard to entertain, neglecting the fact that its characters need to feel like real people rather than laughing stocks.

Slapstick comedy and circus-style football matches override the plot. It is not until the midpoint of the film that a better understanding of the team emerges. The leading team members, Shuangshuang (Zhang Xiaofei) and Yu Long (Dilraba Dilmurat), bare their pasts and reconcile after a bitter falling out. The emotional turning point finally provides context for their drive and love for the sport. Unfortunately, they are the only two characters we know enough about; the side characters mostly remain unrecognisable.

Stephen Chow aims to instill a similar spirit of collaborative passion and underdog triumph to that which he once achieved. Beyond revisiting familiar themes, Kung Fu Soccer is Stephen Chow’s most ambitious attempt to build a woman-centred narrative. 

The Mermaid (2016) saw Stephen Chow place greater emphasis on a female perspective; Kung Fu Soccer makes a more ambitious attempt. Featuring a squad of women in their 30s who are told they are unfit for the sport at this age, the film shows them proving this narrative wrong. The film presents themes of female solidarity and second chances, which are refreshing in Stephen Chow’s filmography.

Although Kung Fu Soccer proves Stephen Chow’s box office appeal and his ability to produce a crowd-pleasing spectacle, it is not comparable to his finest work. The director’s attempt to celebrate women reclaiming their agency through football is praiseworthy; however, it would have been more successful if Chow had prioritised stronger narrative development and characterisation so that the empowering premise could serve as more than just a backdrop. Although Kung Fu Soccer pays tribute to the director’s own legacy, it ultimately fails to stand on its own, lacking the desperate humanity that made the dreamers in his earlier films so memorable.

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Written by Jade Wong

Featured image courtesy of Encore Films

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