Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer Spinoff Kung Fu Soccer Heads Overseas After a Huge China Run

Western audiences are about to get a second chance to see Stephen Chow’s football comedy, this time with an all-women team. Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer, a spiritual successor to his 2001 hit Shaolin Soccer, is moving toward overseas releases after a record-setting summer in China. Variety reports that the film has set releases in the U.S. and U.K., along with an English dub.

October 23 and a Dub With Familiar Voices

Encore Films will open the film in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland on October 23. The release includes a specially produced English dub, with voices from comedian Jimmy O. Yang and rapper-actor MC Jin, and Chow himself is also credited among the voice cast. The choice recalls the 2004 American release of Shaolin Soccer, when Chow recorded an English version of his own role.

A Sequel in Spirit, Not in Story

Where Shaolin Soccer followed a men’s team, the new film follows the Emei women’s football team, a group of ordinary working women who enter the Asian Women’s Champions League as heavy underdogs. Zhang Xiaofei plays the veteran captain Shuangshuang, with Dilraba Dilmurat as star striker Yu Long and Lay Zhang as her mentor. Carina Lau and Takeru Satoh make special appearances. Chow directed and co-wrote the film, but does not appear in it. It was first titled Shaolin Women’s Soccer.

The film runs 106 minutes and was produced by Star Overseas, China Film Group and Ruyi Film. Chow shares the screenplay credit with Hunny Ho.

Early images from the film show the team in pink, with a banner in the stands that reads “The Pear Blossom Team,” a detail that gives the squad a distinct identity from the men’s side of the first film. The mix of everyday jobs and extraordinary abilities carries over from the original, with the comedy built on the gap between the characters’ ordinary lives and the spectacular things they can do on the field.

What the Numbers Say

The film opened in China on July 11 and took about $73.6 million over its first weekend. The Hollywood Reporter, citing Artisan Gateway, said it had earned $214.3 million in its first nine days, and Maoyan raised its full-run forecast to about $441 million. Wikipedia now lists a total of roughly $321 million. The release in Hong Kong followed on August 13.

Reported totals differ by outlet, with some placing the China run closer to $350 million, so readers should treat any single figure as an estimate. What is not in doubt is the film’s role in the market. One report describes China’s overall box office as down sharply from last year, and the film’s opening helped lift the summer season past $650 million after 49 days, according to Screen Daily. Singapore followed on August 6, timed to the country’s National Day weekend.

A Director Returns After a Long Gap

Chow turned 64 this year, and he teased the film’s July launch in a short video posted on his birthday. His last feature as director was The Mermaid in 2016, a fantasy comedy that became the highest-grossing film in Chinese history at the time. The long gap between projects raised expectations for Kung Fu Soccer, and the opening weekend suggested that his name still carries weight with mainland audiences. Because he chose not to appear in the film himself, the story rests on its young cast, many of whom are far better known in China than abroad.

Looking Back at the Original

The first Shaolin Soccer was a Hong Kong production that followed a former Shaolin disciple who recruits his brothers to play football using their martial-arts skills. It had a reported budget of about $10 million and earned roughly $42.8 million worldwide, and it remains one of Hong Kong’s biggest local hits. Its American run was far smaller. Miramax released a shortened, English-dubbed cut in 2004, and the film earned under $500,000 in North America, according to IMDb. Chow’s next film, Kung Fu Hustle, went on to become his largest Western success.

That history explains why the new release matters to its distributor. The earlier film developed a devoted following over time through home video and festival screenings, and Kung Fu Soccer now has the chance to reach a wider audience from the start.

The Distributor’s Pitch

Singapore’s Encore Films holds worldwide rights outside mainland China and has been making deals territory by territory. It also handled the international rollout of Ne Zha 2. Encore’s managing director, Joyce Lee, has told Variety that most football films ask whether a team can win the match, while a Stephen Chow film asks whether it can win while bending the laws of physics. The line sums up the pitch to audiences who may know the director from his earlier work.

Mixed Reviews at Home

Reviews have been mixed: The Korea Times and the South China Morning Post both called the film a stale, gender-swapped take on the original. Screen Daily also described it as a poor imitation of Chow’s early classics. The criticism has not slowed its commercial run, which suggests that audiences were drawn more by the director’s name and the promise of a return to his style than by the reviews.

What Comes Next

The October 23 release will show whether that appeal travels. Chow’s earlier films found loyal but modest audiences in North America, and a women’s-sports comedy dubbed into English arrives in a market where Chinese-language releases rarely open widely. If the film performs well, it could encourage more overseas distribution for Chinese blockbusters. If it does not, it will still have given Chow’s fans a chance to see his latest work in theaters, and given Encore a second major test after the success of Ne Zha 2.