Stephen Chow‘s perfectly timed return to soccer comedy kept on kicking in its second weekend at China‘s box office. Kung Fu Soccer, the comedy legend’s Shaolin Soccer spinoff, added $73.7 million (RMB 501.1 million) over the July 17-19 frame, lifting its total to $214.3 million (RMB 1.46 billion) in just nine days, according to data from Artisan Gateway.
In a market where second weekends routinely shed half their opening business, the film instead topped its two-day debut frame of $73.6 million (RMB 500.3 million), albeit spread across three days this time. Having crossed $147 million (RMB 1 billion) in its first week, the film has prompted ticketing giant Maoyan to raise its full-run forecast to $441 million (RMB 3 billion), up from the RMB 2.5 billion it projected on opening weekend. The film looks likely to finish just short of Chow’s personal box-office record of RMB 3.39 billion ($500 million-plus), set by the fantasy comedy The Mermaid in 2016.
Chow, 64, wrote and directed Kung Fu Soccer — his first feature behind the camera since 2019’s The New King of Comedy — but does not appear onscreen, having stepped away from acting after 2008’s CJ7. Released to mark the 25th anniversary of Shaolin Soccer, and to ride this summer’s FIFA World Cup fever, the film reworks the beloved original’s premise around an underdog, all-female squad whose players integrate martial arts into their game to make an improbable run at a tournament dubbed the Supreme Invincible Cup. Zhang Xiaofei (Hi, Mom) leads the cast as the team’s captain, with Dilraba Dilmurat as its star striker and Lay Zhang as its kung fu coach, plus guest turns from Hong Kong screen icon Carina Lau, Japanese star Takeru Satoh and U.S. comedian Jimmy O. Yang.
