Many gags in Shaolin Soccer are linguistic. For example, the names of the martial arts moves (Mighty Steel Leg, Iron Head) sound humorous in Chinese tonal pronunciation. The Mandarin dub also does a remarkable job of maintaining these puns, whereas English dubs have to rewrite the jokes entirely.
Many of the puns and Shaolin references land better in the original language, providing a deeper layer to the "kung fu meets football" premise. The Uncut Soundtrack: shaolin soccer chinese dub full