Shaolin Soccer

It started with Vbspurs asking if a brief animated GIF is "Shaolin Soccer"

Indeed it is. The gif is derived from a clip in the movie. (clip doesn't work in the screengrab below) Other commenters identified it. Off to YouTube to watch clips of the film, Shaolin Soccer. It has GOT to be weird.

Whatever you think, I like it. Enough to watch another. And another, and another until it seemed like I watched all the fights, all the salient scenes, that I'd seen the whole film in English and Chinese and Spanish. Each clip has over a million views. Some are uploaded for education purposes. The film is used in college film study courses, so they say in thier descriptions. 

The film is old now, released in 2001. It has a solid following. People love this film and having seen the whole thing now I can see why. It's a sweet movie with this type of self-depricating humor throughout, the exaggerations are comical they get much more exaggerated than this, and I noticed some very nice film techniques throughout, nice artistic transitions by depicting what the character is thinking or feeling that segues into reality, some work better than others. For example a fight training scene feels like war, the actor crawls and picks up a helmet that is really not there in the field, puts it on, ping,  and war scene develops, ping ping, as hallucination building up to exaggerated layered rifle shots pinging around him, he calls for help and momentarily sees the rescue helicopter blades blur blend into the face of his coach who is poking him with stick telling him to snap out of it, he looks and his walkie-talkie held up to his face is actually his shoe.

Threadbare and dirty and poor cloth shoes throughout. It's a theme.  

Other transitions work less well. The movie is made in  Hong Kong, the signage is written in English. The coach in an alley is peeing on a wall. He turns his head and reads spray painted in white on a brick wall, "no peeing on the wall." He walks up to the brick wall and it crumbles revealing a scene behind it with a Shaolin fighter facing a gang. 

Obviously the film's target audience is young males. 

And they love this movie so much it makes them behave online. Honestly, the comments I've read to all of the clips are a delight to take in. Along with its exaggerations the film is loaded with very nice touches. The ugly girl he encounters making dough as a Shoulin master is nicely and artistically done very well. What is that move? "That move is the 'shoving of a thousand horses with four tails." Just something weird tossed in. The love story within it draws from classics, sufficiently humanistic and emotional to appeal to females while insufficiently chick-flick to put off the target audience.

Here is a page of YouTube offering. [shaolin soccer]

Oddly, it's not giving me a full version anymore. I watched it all the way through and now it keeps switching to something else no matter which one I select. Except the Spanish and Hindi versions. Oh! I watched it throughAmazon Prime. 

It just keeps going. Yet another video is titled, "What happen if Real Shaolin Kung Fu face MMA on UFC small" That sounded interesting. I watched. It's all about Shaolin training and not about a comparison. I hoped comments would resolve my confusion.  

Anthony Quigley delivers a long explanation. He says the same thing twice as he develops his answer. It is a very good answer as to what would happen if the two types engaged and it answers all similar questions. And that's good, but then here's what I want to show you, the person who answered Quigley had me laughing so hard it made me adore all the people who love this movie whatever their reason for loving it. (I didn't realize until c/p how recent these comments are.) I hope you like this as much as I do.

Antony Quigley1 hour ago
What'd happen? He's get hes ass beaten to a pulp. Just like any other martial artist going against an MMA fighter.
Because people seem to forget. What MMA is, the the culmination of all the best styles, that have been honed and whittled down over the years, to a point where MMA fighters are using only the martial arts that are able to protect them, and the ones that are most effective offensively be it on the ground or standing that expend the least amount of energy.
Remember, the first bunch of MMA fighters were all kinds of single minded fighters against eachother. Boxers, Kickboxers, Muay Thai, BJJ, Wrestlers, Karate guys, Sabat Guys, Taekwando guys etc. And over the years, People started training in the most effective ways ontop of the skills they already had.
Like Boxers were getting taken down or eaten alive on the feet with kicks by Muay Thai guys, Kickboxers, etc. So they had to learn to kick, Defend kicks, wrestle, do BJJ, defend against these things etc.
So the answer to all these questions is Any Martial Art vs MMA fighter = MMA fighter wins easily. Otherwise the martial art that beats the MMA fighters, would be the only thing we'd see being used in the Octagon. Or are you all idiots and don't realize that MMA is just a mix of the most effective ways of attacking and defending developed over years and years of thousands of wins and losses? Thats why i think it's hilarious when boxers say "A boxer would knock an MMA fighter out before he could get close enough to kick him or take him down" lol. If that was the case. We wouldn't have MMA. ALl the boxers would have just won all the titles in the first 20 UFC's and it would have just been turned into a boxing organization. But thats not what happened. Boxers got ripped to shit by kickers, BJJ guys, Taekwando guys, Karate etc.
People need to grow up,

Then he is answered.

A comment that says the same thing over and over, yet delivers it beautifully like verses of a song; restating the same thing with increasing enjoyment. My experience on you|tube is complete now, I need not return again. I asked for the world, then was given a galaxy.