Shaolin Popey (1994)

A high school student (Jimmy Lin) with a crush on the principal’s daughter (Vivian Hsu) joins his kid brother as they train at Shaolin Temple under a little master. They return home to stop the vice-principal and his son from taking over the school.

Teen romance meets nonsense comedy and martial arts in Shaolin Popey. It’s an irreverent and not-altogether, family-friendly kiddy flick that teams Taiwanese pop star Jimmy Lin with a pair of bald little tykes played by the obnoxious Kok Siu-man and real-life wushu child prodigy Sik Siu-lung. The trio ride through an uneven mix of fantasy dream sequences, romantic teen angst, and wire-fu action that manages to hold together on the charms of the two pubescent stars who steal the show. Welcome to the bizarre world of Taiwanese filmmaker Jue Yin-ping, the man previously responsible for such genre oddities as Pink Force Commando, Fantasy Mission Force, and Flying Daggers.

The film can be fairly easily broken into its sum parts made up of rehashes of previous Hollywood and Hong Kong films. The teen melodrama is a loose take on John Hughes’ Some Kind of Wonderful and concerns a prep schooler named Pi Shi-ting (Jimmy Lin) who has a major crush on the principal’s popular and attractive daughter, Annie Chu (Vivian Hsu). But his affections become overshadowed by his rivalry with her boyfriend Eagle, while he completely overlooks his closest friend, the mildly tomboyish Pearl (Hillary Tsui) who secretly likes him. Shi-ting eventually must take on Eagle and his father who tries to muscle his way into the principal’s job.

This plot is the least-appealing aspect of the film and does take up over half of the running time, but the rest focuses on the more entertaining exploits of his kid brother, nicknamed ‘Chow Sing-chi’ (Kok Siu-man). Of course, that’s an obvious nod to Shaolin Soccer star Stephen Chow Sing-chi and an appropriate one at that. This highly-animated kid is presented as a little Stephen Chow who makes exaggerated facial expressions, annoys his brother, and steals smooches from little girls in the park. When little Sing-chi and his brother travel to mainland China with their parents, Sing-chi gets separated from his family and bumps into an equally little Shaolin pupil named Li Lin-kit (Sik Siu-lung). The two quickly decide to trade kung fu training for portable video gaming. Shi-ting joins them at Shaolin and begins training until their worried parents catch up with the brothers. The three reunite back in Taiwan when Lin-kit arrives with several of his fellow monks for a celebration and helps the brothers battle the vice-principal’s goons.

Shaolin Popey is no more of a martial arts film than most of Stephen Chow’s comedies, which share the same type of low-brow humor. But it does feature a number of notable wire-fu action scenes. Jimmy Lin breaks out the rollerblades in two fast-moving “chases” with a jeep. In a dream sequence, Kok Siu-man imagines his brother as a video game character in a scene very similar to Jackie Chan’s Street Fighter brawl in City Hunter. Then there is the kung fu action itself which doesn’t really appear until late in the film and its ruled by the terrific Sik Siu-lung who makes his screen debut. He skims across a lake, kicks the tar out of UK stunt actor Mark Houghton, and generally makes an impressive little fighting monk. In addition to the sequel, Shaolin Popey II, Siu-lung has reteamed with either Kok Siu-man or Jimmy Lin in numerous action/comedy hybrids throughout the ’90s.

As lead, Jimmy Lin is a likable guy, but he’s just too vanilla for me. But at least he’s appropriately cast as a gawky teen rather than the martial arts hero he’s totally miscast as in later roles. I was disappointed by Yuen King-tan’s limited performance. She plays the brothers’ mother, but is best known for playing the obnoxious Abacus Fong in Yuen Wo-ping’s kung fu comedy Wing Chun. There’s a little subplot about her being jealous of her husband’s female business contact, but any potential comic value is wasted and the whole thing just fizzles. Vivian Hsu is here only for eye candy and is definitely upstaged by Hilary Tsui who shows the only signs of having any substance among her teen peers.

For anyone wondering about the odd title of the film, it’s a misspelled reference to Popeye. Yet the iconic American cartoon character has little to do with the film apart from the fact that Kok Siu-man’s dog is named Popeye and Jimmy Lin’s unexplained nickname in the film is ‘Spinach.’

There are not a lot of films starring martial arts-fighting children, particularly young ones with genuine skill. Shaolin Popey is a nice diversion for this reason and for the mildly enjoyable, screwball antics of Kok Siu-man. He and Siu-lung both have a lot of character and are like Chinese variations of The Little Rascals or a kid’s take on The Odd Couple. They pretty much take over in the sequel, but their limited performances here is a shame considering that the rest of the film is so mediocre. That said, I still found this to be a charming film overall and a nice break from the norm.