Shaolin Soccer 2?

I do love a fair bit of Asian cinema, and Stephen Chow’s unique martial sports comedy SHAOLIN SOCCER was monkey-bucket fun. There have been mutterings about a follow-up ever since the award-winning original smashed Hong Kong box office records, but now that Chow has kicked out another hit with KUNG FU HUSTLE, he’s reaching for the balls again.

Chow is reportedly making a psuedo-sequel in partnership with Japanese producer Kameyama Chihiro. But their collaboration sounds like it deviates quite a bit from Chow’s movie — it will star Japanese hottie Kou Shibasaki (BATTLE ROYALE, TOKYO RAIDERS, KAKASHI) as a gal meant to take over the family Shaolin dojo, only to wind up “helping out a sport science university’s lacrosse team”. The actress will apparently need the proper physical training to accomplish a single-take scene fighting through a hundred baddies. I like it already.

The original SHAOLIN SOCCER follows Chow as a down-on-his-luck martial artist looking to raise awareness of Shaolin kung fu, and after some uproarious trial-and-error puts a winning soccer team together comprised of his former training “brothers”.