Soccer heroes = Jingdu Quixia

Synopsis:
In the late Qing Dynasty, the European Football League champion team, The Pirates, had a match with the Foreign Ambassador team in Beijing. After the match, players of The Pirates kicked the balls to the Qing officials and the watching crowd for fun. Although insulted by The Pirates, the Qing officials dare not offend the foreigners, fearing that it may cause diplomatic trouble. A man called, Zhou Tian stood out and kicked the ball back to the captain of The Pirates, Harry, and broke the glass in his hand. The Pirates forced the Chinese to have a soccer match with them, which gave a big headache to the very incapable Qing officials. While the Qing officials were trying to catch the troublemaker, Zhou Tian, they selected a team for the match but ordered that they must not win the match. The fugitive, Zhou Tian, decided to organize a team to take Harry’s challenge. Harry’s fiancée, Jenny helped Zhou Tian and his team to escape the arrest. On the match day, the Qing government team lost to The Pirates. As everybody thought the match was over, Zhou Tian’s Dragon team appeared and defeated The Pirates. However, Zhou Tian and his team mates could not avoid being executed by the Qing government in the end.

Cultural History of the Film:
The leading actor of the film, ZHANG Fengyi is well-known in China and has starred in films such as Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine (1993), John Woo’s Red Cliffs (2009) and etc. Two co-stars of the film, CHEN Peisi and JIANG Kun are two famous comedians in China.

The film was shot in 1988 when the national football team of China was placed high hope to be qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals.

Researcher’s Comments:
The film was popular at the time of its release. The film should be understood in relation to the Chinese patriotism and the Chinese Men’s Football team’s poor performance on the international stage in contrast to extremely high hope placed on the team by the Chinese people.(3 stars - Yuxing Zhou; May 21, 2010)