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| Xue Ye Wins Jackie Chan International Action Film Week Award for Kung Fu Soccer. (Weibo) |
Accepting the award, Xue Ye made sure to acknowledge the filmmaker who gave her the opportunity that started it all. She thanked Stephen Chow directly, saying, “Thank you, Director Stephen Chow, for giving me this opportunity to make a film. I love movies even more now.”
It was a fitting speech from an actress whose entire route into Kung Fu Soccer was anything but conventional, particularly considering she did not begin with years of carefully planned auditions or an established acting career.
Instead, Xue Ye was discovered during a trip to Hong Kong with her parents. While the family was eating, a talent scout connected to Chow’s team approached her and asked for her contact details.
Her parents understandably wanted to check that everything was legitimate before letting their daughter pursue the opportunity, while her father apparently needed very little convincing once he realised the connection was to Stephen Chow.
Xue Ye later recalled just how enthusiastic her father was about the filmmaker, joking that, “My dad really, really, really loves him.”
That family enthusiasm eventually became part of an unlikely career story, although nobody at that lunch could have known that the teenager sitting at the table would later become the face of one of Chow’s most talked-about new projects.
The opportunity came after Stephen Chow launched a global casting call for Kung Fu Soccer in June 2023. More than 20,000 people reportedly entered the selection process, and Chow spent more than a year considering potential candidates before eventually choosing Xue Ye.
Against those numbers, being approached during a meal sounds less like a normal casting story and more like the sort of plot twist that would be rejected for being too convenient in a screenplay.
Her audition itself was hardly the polished showcase one might expect from someone who would eventually win an action film award.
Xue Ye was first asked to run for a short distance while being filmed, before the casting team asked whether she could dance. Her answer was straightforward: she had never actually learned how.
That did not stop Stephen Chow from asking her to try. According to Xue Ye, he told her, “It’s okay. Just dance for a bit.” She then attempted an improvised Latin dance routine, although the result was apparently memorable for reasons that had little to do with technical perfection.
She struggled to keep up with the rhythm, and people watching the audition reportedly found it difficult not to laugh.
Rather than seeing the awkward performance as a problem, Chow apparently noticed something else. Xue Ye was relaxed enough to make mistakes without completely freezing up, and she did not seem overly concerned about looking perfect.
That natural quality ultimately worked in her favour. Chow decided she was suitable for the role and even gave the character the actress’s own name, making Xue Ye both the name of the performer and the character she plays.
Landing the part, however, was only the beginning. Xue Ye then faced demanding physical preparation for Kung Fu Soccer, including martial arts and action training. She performed her own action sequences and found herself dealing with everything from muddy football scenes to physically exhausting work in the desert.
The glamour of an action-film debut, it seems, comes with rather more rolling around in unpleasant places than the promotional posters usually suggest.
One particularly demanding sequence was the film’s “Tianwai Feixian” signature move, which reportedly required more than 100 takes before Xue Ye finally got the performance right.
The assistant director even joked that she was “about to break the record” because of the sheer number of attempts. For a newcomer, having to repeat the same action sequence more than 100 times sounds less like a rehearsal and more like an extremely determined negotiation with gravity.
Yet Xue Ye’s memories of filming are not defined entirely by the difficult physical work. She has also spoken warmly about Stephen Chow and the way he treated her during production. On one occasion, she was accidentally injured while filming on a beach and became hesitant about returning to the set because she felt guilty about what had happened.
Stephen Chow noticed the change in her mood and tried to make the situation less uncomfortable with a joke. “Hey, weren’t you not there at the time? I didn’t even notice,” he told her.
Xue Ye has said the comment affected her so deeply that she almost cried, suggesting that the director’s support mattered to her just as much as the professional opportunity itself.
Now, the recognition at Jackie Chan International Action Film Week gives Xue Ye an early milestone to add to an already unusual introduction to the film industry.
Her award acknowledges the promise she has shown in an action-heavy production, while also placing more attention on a young actress whose first major role came after an unexpectedly large international casting search.
Xue Ye has made it clear that she does not intend to treat Kung Fu Soccer as a one-off experience. Speaking about what she wants next, she said, “I hope I’ll have the opportunity to do more action work in the future.”
She also credited the film with deepening her appreciation for filmmaking, saying during her acceptance speech that she now loves movies even more.
The reaction from fans is likely to remain mixed as audiences get to know Xue Ye beyond her debut. Some viewers are celebrating the fact that a previously unknown young performer has gone from being discovered by chance to collecting an industry award, while others are more interested in seeing whether she can establish herself through roles outside Kung Fu Soccer.
Either way, her unusual journey has already given her something many newcomers spend years trying to find: a story people remember.
For Xue Ye, the journey from a family meal in Hong Kong, through a 20,000-person casting search, an awkward dance audition, more than 100 takes and a physically demanding action shoot, has now led to her first major honour.
Xue Ye's next challenge is arguably the more interesting one: proving that this is not simply a remarkable debut story, but the start of a career worth following. Would you watch Xue Ye take on another action role after Kung Fu Soccer, and do you think she has what it takes to become one of the genre’s next young names?