‘Kung Fu Soccer’ review: Stephen Chow’s Chinese box-office hit is poor imitation of his early classics

Dir: Stephen Chow. China/Hong Kong. 2026. 106mins

The third time is not the charm for actor/director Stephen Chow in Kung Fu Soccer, a sequel in name only to the former actor’s worldwide hits from the early 2000s. Pivoting on a fictional women’s martial arts football team competing in a high stakes tournament, Soccer relies on outdated jokes and lazy special effects, and does little to remind anyone of why Chow originally made such a splash globally. The film’s garish visuals are less transporting than trashy and, most egregiously, it is aggressively free of any white knuckle sports action.

Relies on outdated jokes and lazy special effects

Chow, once massively popular in his home territory of Hong Kong for his mo lei tau comedy, a combination of nonsense and wordplay particularly sharp in Cantonese, broke into the international mainstream in the wake of back-to-back hits Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004). Both remain among Hong Kong’s biggest local box office hits of all time, though Chow’s recent metric for success has come from mainland China.

Essentially retired from acting, as a director Chow has concentrated on making features in China since 2008, such as 2015’s The Mermaid, and rehashing older hits from Hong Kong like 2019’s The New King of Comedy. Kung Fu Soccer is a very loose spiritual sequel to the 1999 original and its warm reception was likely due to good timing; its July domestic release landed just as all eyes were turning to the World Cup, and so it’s posted a solid US$320 from release in China and Singapore. Yet, while Chow maintains a cult following, the film – with its clunky effects, muddy production values and a paper thin story – is unlikely to reach those heights in overseas markets when it starts rolling out from August 14.

There’s no fussing around with backstory, tension or even a hoary ‘getting the band back tougher’ sequence to start Kung Fu Soccer. Chow and first-time co-writer Hunny Ho (it should be noted there are nine other contributing writers credited on screen) get straight to work introducing Shuangshuang (Zhang Xioafei, Hi, Mom, Last Suspect) the mean-spirited and overly competitive Chinese Emei captain. Her best friend, Jade (TV star Dilraba Dilmurat), is the team’s star striker, and they’re deep in training for the Supreme and Invincible tournament, which brings together 16 women’s teams from around Asia-Pacific to compete for a large gold ball-shaped trophy.

Shuangshuang is an orphan, and so she’s loud and angry. Jade is divorced. That’s what passes for character in Kung Fu Soccer whenever stale national stereotypes are not included (such as its sneaky, beauty-obsessed Korean players).

Guiding Emei through the bracket is Xu Feng (boyband Exo member Zhang Yixing, No More Bets), an old friend of the two women and the proxy team master, carrying out the plans of the true Grandmaster (Hong Kong star Carina Lau) in her absence. Like any sport drama there are ups and downs, a betrayal, someone quits the team, there’s a reconciliation before the big match against Japan (naturally) and all ends well.

Chow runs through the paces in a simultaneously predictable and confounding narrative that alienates thanks to its unappealing lead – Shuangshuang might be a psychopath – half-baked supporting characters that leave no impression, and several jokes that should have been left in the 2000s; for example, a male actor plays the Japanese goalkeeper in what’s either a transphobic jibe or a simply a bad joke. Crucially, action director Qin Pengfei does not acquit himself well with either the football scenes or the martial arts. Kung Fu Soccer, which is predicated on footballers using wild martial arts skills to defy physics and score goals, isn’t supposed to make logical sense, but the fantasy element doesn’t mean the sport action need be so sloppy and low-energy. The images have the sheen of video game cut scenes at best, AI slop at worst, and the whole endeavour lacks the buoyant, snarky fun of the original.

Chow’s name still carries weight, so the blessedly brief run time is padded out with cameos from rapper MC Jin, Louis Cheung, Jimmy O Yang, Chinese national team goalkeeper Zhao Lina and Japanese dance group Avantgardey. But one appearance from a Shaolin Soccer cast member and a pair of decent sight gags – which are essentially the same joke – don’t come close to bringing Kung Fu Soccer into the first film’s orbit.