If you frequently visit Love and Bullets, you will notice a distinct lack of reviews for comedies. This is mostly because I was afraid that most of the humor would rely on language and it might not survive the translation. I was hesitant to get the SHAOLIN SOCCER DVD until I wound up seeing it in the theater. Miramax has this one so anything can happen to it in the future. I found the movie genuinely funny and laughed out loud several times.

The story is about "Golden Leg", a teenager who throws a soccer game for money. He promptly gets beaten. The story jumps to the present and Golden Leg is working for the very person who gave him the check. This person is now the coach of EVIL TEAM. Golden Leg wants to start his own team so he tries to recruit players. He meets Sing, a cleaner who is trying to figure out how to promote his Shaolin Kung Fu. Sing explains all the benefits of knowing Kung Fu to Golden Leg. Neither put two and two together that he can use soccer. Instead, Sing and his friend, Iron Head, sing about it. This gets them beat up by a gang. When Sing wants to take the gang on fairly, he uses a soccer ball to defeat them. Golden Leg happens upon the display and they decide to form a team.

The picture quality is pretty good on both the 27 inch screen and the 47 inch one. On both, it's obvious that the print is in good condition even though there are some specks on the film at times. The colors also look good. This is a very new movie so you will notice vast improvements in this DVD in ways of picture and sound if you are used to the older imports. The transfer looks good but on my 27 inch TV and computer monitor I noticed some combing (lines in the picture) when there is quick movement. On the Malata player, the video filter can be set to "Camera 1" to correct this. On the 47 inch screen, this did not occur. The large screen did make a very limited amount of artifacts apparent but I did not see these at all on the smaller screen. In fact, this has been the movie I show everybody that wants to see my new widescreen TV.

The sound is also done well. The rear speakers are used for sound effects and not overdone. The mixing is done well although sometimes the center channel could have been a little louder. Very minor complaint for an overall very good mix.

The subtitles are easy to read and contain some infrequent spelling and grammatical errors. The word "bald" is misspelled as "blad" twice and it makes me laugh when I see it. This isn't too distracting and the subtitles are fine otherwise.

This cut of SHAOLIN SOCCER doesn't have the extra scenes that were later added when shown in Hong Kong theaters. These are accessible though while the movie is playing by pressing ENTER on the remote when a soccer icon is displayed in the right corner. This has its good and bad points. The bad is that the icon can't be removed and you don't really know if you click the button if it's an extra scene or a special effects shot. There is a dance number that is an extra scene that is worth watching the whole movie for. It can be accessed when Sing offers his sneakers for the sweet buns. I don't mind the little icon so much, I just would have preferred an option at the start to view the movie with or without the extra material.

I enjoyed the "making of" documentary that's included on the DVD. It's an interesting look at the making of the film. The NG scenes include one that actually wound up in the extended cut of the film in place of a similar scene.

If you are a fan of this film, I definitely recommend this DVD. Disney has the rights to this film and will be releasing it in 2003. I can't even guess what will be cut and changed. This movie is wacky and crazy at times and always entertaining. If you haven't really been into comedies before, SHAOLIN SOCCER would be a good movie to start with. The humor is mostly physical and doesn't rely on word play. There are some great little parodies of movies as well as a great homage to Bruce Lee. I don't think you will be disappointed with this one.