Humour doesn't travel nearly as easily or effectively as drama.

Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer is one of the all-time top-grossing films in Hong Kong and China. In Asia, Chow is as famous and popular as Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and Jet Li, yet he's still an unknown performer in North America.

He was hoping to change all that with Shaolin Soccer, a screwball comedy that plays more like The Bad News Bears than the heartwarming and funny Bend It Like Beckham.

Chow is Sing, a devoted student of Shaolin, a discipline combining meditation with martial arts. One day fate introduces Sing to a former soccer legend, Golden Leg Fung (Man Tat Ng), who was betrayed and critically injured by the villainous Hung (Yin Tse), now the top soccer promoter in Hong Kong.

Together, Sing and Fung put together the most unlikely soccer team, comprised of Sing's fraternal and spiritual brothers.

Spectacular stunts are showcased as they take on Hung's infamous Team Evil in the Hong Kong soccer finals.

The verbal sparring doesn't work as well, and joke after joke falls flat in the translation.

There's a sweet love story between Sing and Mui (Vicki Zhao), a girl whose beautiful soul is just waiting to be freed as is her own martial arts prowess. It plays much like a Charlie Chaplin romance and then breaks into a silly song-and-dance number.

People are bound to wonder what all the fuss was about in Asia where Shaolin Soccer is still considered a phenomenon.

There's no question Chow is talented.

But this just isn't the vehicle that will make him an international star.

(This film is rated PG)

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