Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer races past $214 million in nine days

MUMBAI: Stephen Chow has proved that some goals are worth waiting for and the box office is cheering every strike. The filmmaker’s long-awaited return to football comedy is scoring well beyond expectations, with Kung Fu Soccer continuing its dream run at the Chinese box office after a remarkable second weekend.

The film collected $73.7 million (RMB 501.1 million) during the 17–19 July weekend, taking its cumulative earnings to $214.3 million (RMB 1.46 billion) in just nine days, according to Artisan Gateway.

The performance is particularly notable because it bucked one of the Chinese box office’s most common trends. While major releases often lose around half their opening-weekend business in their second outing, Kung Fu Soccer marginally improved on its opening frame of $73.6 million (RMB 500.3 million) although the latest total came across a three-day weekend compared with its earlier two-day debut.

Having crossed RMB 1 billion ($147 million) within its first week, the film has prompted ticketing platform Maoyan to revise its lifetime box office forecast upwards to RMB 3 billion ($441 million), compared with its initial projection of RMB 2.5 billion made during opening weekend.

If the revised estimate holds, the film will finish just shy of Stephen Chow’s biggest commercial success, The Mermaid, which earned RMB 3.39 billion more than $500 million following its release in 2016.

Written and directed by the 64-year-old filmmaker, Kung Fu Soccer marks Chow’s first directorial outing since 2019’s The New King of Comedy. Although he remains behind the camera, Chow does not appear on screen, having stepped away from acting after CJ7 in 2008.

Released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the cult classic Shaolin Soccer, the new film also arrives at a time of heightened football interest fuelled by this summer’s FIFA World Cup.

Rather than revisiting the original’s all-male team, Kung Fu Soccer reimagines the story around an underdog women’s football squad, whose players combine martial arts with football in a bid to win the fictional Supreme Invincible Cup.

The ensemble cast is led by Zhang Xiaofei (Hi, Mom) as the team captain, alongside Dilraba Dilmurat as its star striker and Lay Zhang as the kung fu coach. The film also features guest appearances from Carina Lau, Takeru Satoh and Jimmy O. Yang.

The film’s impressive momentum underscores the enduring appeal of Stephen Chow’s distinctive blend of slapstick comedy, martial arts and heartfelt underdog storytelling. More than two decades after Shaolin Soccer became a global cult favourite, its spiritual successor has demonstrated that audiences are still eager to line up for a comedy that knows exactly how to find the back of the net.