As of July 21, after 11 days of screening, the revenue of the movie "The Kungfu Girl" written and directed by Stephen Chow has exceeded the milestone of 1.6 billion RMB (more than 6,000 billion VND), currently ranked 3rd in the Chinese box office revenue rankings in 2026, and also entered the top 60 highest-grossing films in Chinese box office history.
However, the film only achieved 6.6 ratings from audiences on Douban. Many comments expressed disappointment, and many film criticism channels also posted videos criticizing the film.
But in the opposite direction, the work still accounts for more than 50% of the screenings and revenue is still increasing sharply, showing that the audience's reaction is very clearly differentiated.
In this context, "The Kungfu Women's Football Team" is compared to Stephen Chow's classic 25 years ago - "The Shaolin Football Team".
On Douban, "Shaolin Soccer" was rated 8.2 points on average by more than 470,000 people, ranking 19th in the list of highest-rated sports films.
Unfortunately, because the two words "Shaolin" were registered as a trademark, but Stephen Chow refused to change the film's name, making the final work unable to be released in theaters in mainland China, becoming a regret for audiences of the 7X and 8X generations.
Now, when Stephen Chow returns with a movie of the same genre called "The Kungfu Girl", it is inevitable that fans will put the two works on the scale.
The "Kungfu Women's Football Team" has many similarities with the "Shaolin Football Team". The theme is still the combination of martial arts and football, but this time the entire squad changed from male to female, and the focus of the story also changed.
Unlike the "Shaolin Football Team", the "Kungfu Women's Football Team" completely ignored the team formation process and started with matches.
In "Shaolin Soccer", Stephen Chow once said the famous line: "Being a person without dreams is like a salted fish", inspiring many viewers.
25 years later, in his position as screenwriter and director, he wants the audience to understand that winning or losing is not the most important thing, but to know how to enjoy the competitive process, to accept an imperfect self and live fully with the present.
Regarding character building, both works portray characters who come from many difficult backgrounds.
Team leader A Tinh (played by Chau Tinh Tri) in "Shaolin Soccer" is a poor worker in the lowest class of society. Although life has fallen to the bottom, he still does not give up the ideal of promoting Shaolin martial arts.
Captain Song Song (played by Truong Tieu Phi) in "The Kungfu Women's Football Team" is an orphaned, poor child who has never enjoyed family warmth.
Stephen Chow's acting brings the character A Tinh a sense of authenticity and depth. This stems from his own experience growing up in poverty. Every helpless eye or shy face of A Tinh makes viewers clearly feel the hardship that the character has to face.
And "The Kungfu Women's Football Team" uses some flashback scenes to tell about Song Song's growth process, but does not spend much time portraying her life.
Some opinions suggest that Song Song's context lacks connection with real life, so all her efforts are only superficial.
Truong Tieu Phi tried very hard to show the stubbornness, seriousness and determination of the character, but the exaggerated expressions and movements made the audience feel that she was acting too much.
