[Sportschosun, Kim Jun-seok] As Chinese actor and director Stephen Chow's new film 'Kung Fu Women's Soccer' continues its box-office surge, the way it portrays a Korean women's soccer team is drawing accusations of mockery in South Korea.
According to Chinese media outlets including The Paper and Guangming Daily on the 14th, 'Kung Fu Women's Soccer,' which opened on the 11th, surpassed 600 million yuan, or about 132 billion won, in cumulative box office revenue within three days of release.
Local forecasts also suggest that its final box office total could reach 2.5 billion yuan, or about 550 billion won.
'Kung Fu Women's Soccer' is a follow-up project to Chow's signature hit 'Shaolin Soccer,' which became hugely popular across Asia in 2001.
The film comically follows a weak women's soccer team as it achieves a miraculous rise through a style of play that combines martial arts and soccer.
However, once the film's depiction of a Korean women's soccer team became known, negative reactions quickly spread across domestic online communities and social networking service platforms.
In the film, the Korean team appears under a name that evokes a well-known women's university in South Korea. The players are portrayed as being more obsessed with makeup and circle lenses than with the game, and the team is depicted as playing so-called 'foul soccer' by committing fouls and violence first, then using exaggerated acting to sway the referee's decisions.
The controversy grew further with a scene in which a character shouts, in awkward Korean, "Referee, please help us!" along with a setup that appears to satirize Korean women's makeup culture.
Internet users have responded with comments such as, "Wasn't this just exploiting Korean women's soccer in a negative way?" "Even if it's comedy, a setup that ridicules a specific country is uncomfortable," and "It went too far to portray fouls and an obsession with appearance as the image of the Korean team."
On the other hand, some argue that Chow's signature exaggerated B-movie style of comedy should be taken into account.
They say the setup is simply meant to highlight the villain and that it is difficult to conclude that the intention was to directly disparage a specific country or Korean women's soccer.
Although the film succeeded commercially right after its release, the controversy over its portrayal of the Korean team has made 'Kung Fu Women's Soccer' an unexpected hot topic in South Korea as well.
narusi@sportschosun.com
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
