Before “Shaolin Soccer”, there was “The Champions”. Yuen Biao, despite his athletic prowess, was always a support act for his Peking opera brothers Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and never quite reached their level of stardom, despite earning a reputation as one of the most talented performers of his generation. This feature sees him front and centre with an opportunity to show off his talent. So is it a match winner or does it get a deserved red card?
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The opening of the film is rather unusual, as we get football tricks against a white background. Lee Tong (Yuen Biao) is sent away by his father (Eddie Ko) after getting in trouble. Upon arrival in town, he meets Fung (Moon Lee) and her brother Kido (Cheung Kwok Leung). Finding he has a talent for football, he joins the local team, but having upset their star player King (Dick Wei) earlier, he is humiliated and reduced to being a ball boy. After agreeing to throw a match, King feigns injury and Lee Tong is sent on as a substitute. However, things do not go according to plan and Lee Tong inadvertently becomes a hero. After joining another team, Lee Tong must face King once more.
Dick Wei, the villian par excellence of the 1980's has a blast playing the conceited, corrupt King. Always an accomplished screen fighter, he gets to show off his martial arts prowess as well as ball skills. The highlight is the initial training session where he gets to be creative in his fouling of Lee Tong. So often he is the henchman to get beaten up in the final reel and it's great to see him get a proper role to enjoy. Moon Lee crops up in an early role pre action star days and there is good support from Cheung Kwok Leung and Eddie Ko.
There are some similarities with the later “Shaolin Soccer” which does make you wonder if this was an influence. The initial match is reminiscent of a similar contest in the latter and Eddie Ko, whilst not a coach, has a similar injury to Ng Man Tat's that also involves an earlier football contest. There are some lovely visual touches, with the commentator sitting in the tree and the dance sequence descending into sneaky kung fu. The football matches are inventive and make good use of the performers as well as the Yuen Chan's choreography. The action is clear, concise and with little enhancement. The narrative is fairly weak however, and is essentially just a loose story to fit the action around. It's a familiar failing but when the action is good, then it can largely be ignored unless you feel particularly fussy. It does however knock it down from being a classic and just being something very good.
This movie though is Yuen Biao's. Given an ample showcase, we get to see his comic timing and sheer athleticism. His character is not a martial arts superman but is instead just a talented ball player and acrobat. He develops his skills through observation and is an earnest individual as opposed to the usual mischief maker we get in most action comedies. He gets into trouble by accident as opposed to causing it. Whilst he doesn't have a larger than life presence, his everyman persona (albeit incredibly talented) fits this particular role.
This is a very entertaining production despite not being consistently funny and hampered a little by an ever so slight narrative. This is more than made up for though, with inventive choreography and some innovative football sequences performed by Yuen Biao and Dick Wei. One to check out as might have passed many over time, and a reminder of just how good Yuen Biao was in his prime.
