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

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.

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 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.

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. 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.