Trigger

In spite of being cut by 30 minutes and having all the chinese on-screen text replaced with english via CG - including Golden Leg's belly tattoo... this got two thumbs up on their tv show. I didn't catch the entire review, but Ebert did say he was pleased that they put the subtitles back and removed that awful dub. I'm still not gonna support it since Stephen Chow already got his money from MiramAxe. I am just gonna send Miramax a tiny little $7 message that they shouldn't Americanize asian films beyond giving them subtitles.

Supermallet

I don't have a problem with replacing Chinese text with English, because otherwise it gets subtitled and there isn't much of a difference.

However, cutting it by 30 minutes means I won't be seeing it, especially since the DVDs have been widely available and I've seen the film three times by now.

whynotsmile

i saw the dubbed version. laughed my ass off. the length seemed perfect as it was )can't imagine what wiould need to be cut) and the dubbing made the film even funnier

RyoHazuki

They should have crapped on the movie because of English text?

Jeraden

30 minutes is a huge chunk of time to cut. What all are they getting rid of? I have the full cut on DVD and while there might be a few scenes here and there that I could see being removed, I can't see how 30 minutes could be cut without impacting the plot.

Rypro 525

Some of the changes to "Shaolin Soccer" found in the new Miramax U.S. cut:
The film has been shortened from 102 minutes to just over 80
The opening titles have been deleted. Replaced by main title over generic "Asian" background.
The opening B&W bribery scene between Golden Leg and Hung has been deleted.
A musical sequence with Sing and the gang outside of Mui's sweet roll shop has been reinstated.
Dialog has been removed between Sing and Iron Head during the club scenes.
Also gone are some of the bottle-to-head smashes on Iron Head.
The vomit and fart gags have been deleted from Sing's first soccer attack in the streets.
All the initial meetings with the Brothers have been shortened.
The film is dubbed into English, thus not allowing time for the true translation of the screenplay. Dialog is often without the meaning the original version contained.
Sing's apartment scene is deleted.
Amazingly, the bizarre "egg" joke with Little Brother during soccer training remains in the Miramax cut.
Golf course scene between Hung and Golden Leg has been cut out.
The final soccer match has a variety of cuts in it, mostly to take out the more extreme visuals featuring blood and violence.
A cover version of "Kung Fu Fighting" is used over the last scene of the film and the end credits, removing the score entirely.

from imdb.com

RichC2

I thought the US Version was subtitled now?

jaeufraser

Well, count me in as someone who will not be seeing Miramax's US release of this.

I will go see Hero though, as it seems Quentin used his clout to get that released properly.

Corvin

I saw this yesterday in an empty theater. The cuts are apparent--this in no way felt like a finished film.

Besides the normal complaints, let me add one more. They make all these changes to the film, yet they release it to one theater in Chicago. I would tend to think that if it's only released to that theater, only the most "eclectic" of film-goers are going to buy a ticket. In other words, why make all these changes to the film when the audience is going to be composed of people who have seen plenty of foreign language films?

On a somewhat related note, Ebert wrote a cool review for the film:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert...haolin23f.html

mookyman

From Ebert's review:

"Every month or so, I get an anguished letter from a reader wanting to know how I could possibly have been so ignorant as to award three stars to, say, "Hidalgo" while dismissing, say, "Dogville" with two stars. This disparity between my approval of kitsch and my rejection of angst reveals me, of course, as a superficial moron who will do anything to suck up to my readers."

I guess he does frequent DVDTalk.

Jay G.

Just to keep things clear:

There were two cuts of this film that played in Hong Kong in the summer of 2001. The original theatrical cut was 102 minutes long. Then, about a month later, an Extended Cut of the film was released to theatres that ran 112 minutes long. This cut added in 2 scenes and a gag-reel at the end.

Miramax bought it in Fall of 2001 and proceeded their process of messing with it. First they changed the title to "Kung-Fu Soccer," which everyone hated, forcing Miramax to change the name back. Then, they proceeded to cut the film down to 87 minutes, or 25 minutes shorter than the Extended Cut. It's clear Miramax used the extended cut as their starting point, since they used one of the extended scenes in their cut, as well as replacing one short bit with an outtake from the gag reel.

They also dubbed the film with Stephen Chow doing his own voice. All the others were done by people affecting Asian accents. They also cut or altered the violence so that the film earned a PG rating. Miramax placed their first trailer for the film before SPY KIDS 2, showing that they were going for the kid audience with the film.

Then, they sat on it. And sat on it. And sat on it. Projected release dates came and went. Then, Miramax decided to release it Fall of 2003. Another trailer was shown, this time in front of Spy Kids 3D. It was planned to go fairly wide, around 700 theatres. Then, in August 2003, Miramax did test screenings of their cut.

It bombed. Miramax pulled the film from their schedule.

During this whole time, fans had been screaming at Miramax to give this film a decent release, i.e. uncut and undubbed. At this point, it appeared that Miramax finally relented, saying that they'd release the film subtitled and with a PG-13 rating.

Flash to this April. The film was released subtitled, but still cut by 25 minutes. Only a few seconds of violence had been added back in, which was enough to bump the rating up to PG-13. Miramax only releases the film to half a dozen theatres.

So to sum up: Miramax f***ed with the film, then dumped it.

Notes on DVD releases:
The Hong Kong DVD release contains the original theatrical cut. However, it does have the extended scenes which are selectable by pushing the "enter" button on your remote when certain icons appear on the screen at the points in the film where the scenes should be inserted into. The icons on non-removable if you have English subtitles on.

The Korean R3 DVD release is the same way, except that you can't see the icons if you do have English subs on.

The Japanese R2 contains the Extended Cut only, as well as a commentary track by Stephen Chow. Unfortunately, no English subtitles.

There are other DVD releases, but they all suffer from lack of English subtitles as far as I know.

Jay G.

My guess is that Miramax kept their cut version, only adding in a few seconds of violence, so that they could still use their dub track when they release the film on DVD. The added violence was to get a PG-13, since teens find that rating more appealing than PG.

Jay G.

Quentin has managed to get Miramax to release HERO in a fairly decent form.

However, what he didn't manage to do was get Miramax to add in the 20 minutes that were cut from the film at Miramax's insistence before the film was ever released anywhere. The 20 minute longer cut has so far failed to appear in theatres or on DVD anywhere in the world. So we get the same cut everyone else in the world has seen, but not the cut the director originally intended.

RichC2

Sucks, but still better than cutting it even more.

And don't people realize, Test screenings do little these days, it's all about having a clever marketting campaign it seems. It's the sequels that tend to hurt from crappy test screenings, of course - that could just be me.

lxl

I thought Ebert gave EVERY chinese movies he saw THUMB UP.

Sometimes I really doubt how he can enjoy these movies by reading those bad subtitles...

Groucho

Say what you like about Miramax, but their subtitles are usually pretty good. Often a big step up from the Engrish sub-titles on the Hong Kong discs that make little to no sense.

cultshock

I'm very surprised that scene was left in. I thought for sure that odd scene would be the first one to go.

lxl

From my experience, lots of details got lost in the translations of subtitles. The only good subtitle I have seen is the one from Crouching Tiger, but still...

So my point is, Ebert really does NOT mean much when he reviews Chinese movies.

Rypro 525

according to imdb, the columbia dvd subtitles of crouching tiger are simplied, and not the original subs that were in theaters. they are the same one's i remeber at least.

joeydaninja

Ebert finally gets my respect.



http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert...haolin23f.html

'Shaolin Soccer" is like a poster boy for my theory of the star rating system. Every month or so, I get an anguished letter from a reader wanting to know how I could possibly have been so ignorant as to award three stars to, say, "Hidalgo" while dismissing, say, "Dogville" with two stars. This disparity between my approval of kitsch and my rejection of angst reveals me, of course, as a superficial moron who will do anything to suck up to my readers.

What these correspondents do not grasp is that to suck up to my demanding readers, I would do better to praise "Dogville." It takes more nerve to praise pop entertainment; it's easy and safe to deliver pious praise of turgid deep thinking. It's true, I loved "Anaconda" and did not think "The United States of Leland" worked, but does that mean I drool at the keyboard and prefer man-eating snakes to suburban despair?

Not at all. What it means is that the star rating system is relative, not absolute. When you ask a friend if "Hellboy" is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to "Mystic River," you're asking if it's any good compared to "The Punisher." And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if "Superman" (1978) is four, then "Hellboy" is three and "The Punisher" is two. In the same way, if "American Beauty" gets four stars, then "Leland" clocks in at about two.

And that is why "Shaolin Soccer," a goofy Hong Kong action comedy, gets three stars. It is piffle, yes, but superior piffle. If you are even considering going to see a movie where the players zoom 50 feet into the air and rotate freely in violation of everything Newton held sacred, then you do not want to know if I thought it was as good as "Lost in Translation."

"Shaolin Soccer" has become a legend. It's the top-grossing action comedy in Hong Kong history, and was a big hit at Toronto 2002 (although for some reason I didn't see it; I must have been sidetracked by "Bowling for Columbine"). Miramax bought it, and shelved it for two years, apparently so Harvey Weinstein could cut it by 30 minutes, get rid of the English dubbing, restore the subtitles, and open it one week after his own "Kill Bill Vol. 2." To put this movie up against Tarantino is like sending Simon Cowell against William H. Rehnquist, but Simon has his fans.

The movie has been directed and co-written by Stephen Chow, who stars as Sing, a martial arts master turned street cleaner, who uses his skills in everyday life and is in love with Mui (Vicki Zhao), who sells buns from her little street stand and combs her hair forward to conceal a complexion that resembles pizza with sausage and mushrooms. It is a foregone conclusion that by the end of this film Mui will be a startling beauty. Less predictable is that Sing recruits seven soccer players from his former monastery to form a soccer team.

His inspiration to do this is Fung (Ng Man Tat), known as the Golden Leg because he was, years ago, a great soccer hero until his leg was broken by Hung (Patrick Tse Yin). Hung now rules the soccer world as owner of Team Evil (yes, Team Evil), while Fung drags his leg like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is another foregone conclusion that Team Evil will meet the Shaolin soccer team formed by Fung and Sing in a thrilling match played before what looks like a vast crowd that has been borrowed from a computer game.

The game doesn't follow any known rules of soccer, except that there is a ball and a goal. As the players swoop high into the air and do acrobatics before kicking the ball, I was reminded more of Quidditch. There is also the matter of ball velocity. The players can kick the ball so hard that it actually catches fire as it rockets through the air, or digs a groove in the ground as it plows toward the goal.

Since the game is impossible and it is obvious Team Evil will lose, there's not much suspense, but there is a lot of loony comedy, a musical number, and the redemption of the Poor Spotted Little Bun Girl. As soccer comedies go, then, I say three stars. It's nowhere near as good as "Bend it Like Beckham," of course -- but "Beckham" is in a different genre, the coming-of-age female-empowerment film. It's important to keep these things straight.

drjay

Great great writeup by Ebert. Even though I sometimes disagree with him his logic/reasoning is nearly impossible to argue with.

Groucho

I don't understand...what's so different about this review from his other reviews that suddenly he gets your respect?

joeydaninja

well, he finally admits that he's a superficial moron, that he makes no pretenses about not liking popcorn movies. he's not an art film critic but a pop film critic. I dunno, I just like it that he said it.

Groucho

Are you reading a different review than you quoted? He didn't say any of those things.

Corvin