Shaolin Soccer

I know now that I won't have any trouble persuading V to come to the cinema this summer to see Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle. She was cracking up from the first bit of (literally) banana-skin humour.

This film is simply superb; it has everything. Who needs the spirit of Bruce Grobelaar in goal when you can have Bruce Lee's? (Dudek's big moment last week would have been even more memorable had he beckoned them on like that with the gloved finger.)

Chow has blended visual, deadpan, goofball and gross-out comedy in a film that even manages to be moving at the same time that it is funny. I can't think of many Western equivalents that achieve this nowadays. (It's the little details that do it - like when Sing (Brother #5) takes Mui to the mall and it becomes clear that he has traded these moments for a night cleaning the floors.)

"You have humiliated me. My whole family will have to commit suicide in front of you", was a very memorable line. The Chinese can laugh at themselves!