Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Soccer Reaches UK Cinemas on 23 October, Slightly Less Bloody
Encore Films is bringing Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer spin-off to UK and Ireland cinemas on 23 October, with an English-dubbed trailer out now and subtitled screenings already on some listings.
Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Soccer has a UK date. Encore Films UK & Ireland posted an English-dubbed trailer on YouTube on 9 October, and it says the film opens in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on Friday 23 October.
It's the first film Chow has directed since The New King of Comedy in 2019, and it's a spin-off from Shaolin Soccer. This time the underdogs are the Emei Women's Football Team, who bring martial arts to a tournament called the Supreme Invincible Cup. Zhang Xiaofei plays captain Shuangshuang and Dilraba Dilmurat is striker Yu Long, with Lay Zhang as their mentor Xu Feng. Encore also lists special appearances from Carina Lau and Takeru Satoh.
The film opened in mainland China on 11 July, and The Numbers puts its international box office at more than $312 million.
The BBFC listing has the best footnote. Encore chose to cut scenes of strong injury detail to get the 12A rating it asked for, and the board says an uncut 15 was available. The 12A version still has, in the BBFC's words, "sight of blood as a result of people being struck or hit by footballs during matches".
There'll be a choice of versions, at least at The Light. Its Cambridge cinema lists a Mandarin screening with English subtitles on Saturday 24 October, and Sheffield has an English-dubbed show the next afternoon, both as part of the chain's Chinese Cinema strand.
We'll probably go subtitled out of old habit. Still, we're curious how Chow's football and wire-fu gags play in English, so the dubbed trailer is next on our list.
