Pinpon

I watched this movie in Japan, in the theater, twice. At $25 a shot. But it was worth every dollar. And this was without understanding much of the dialogue, because I don't speak Japanese. When the DVD was released with English subtitles, I purchased it immediately. And again, it was worth every dollar.

This movie is fantastic. On the surface, it's a movie about sports and competition. Beneath this, it's a movie about heroes and friendship. There's no clear-cut "bad guy". Every character has depth, motive and pain.

In short, the filming is great, the story is fabulous, and the actors are well-cast. Even watching it in Japanese, the acting was good enough to convey the general story without me understanding what was being said.

I love this movie. In fact, whenever I meet someone who hasn't seen it, I make them watch it.

This was a great movie to come out of Japan. The actors playing the roles made these characters come to life. Yôsuke Kubozuka, that played Peco (Peko) was such a dynamic character. Also, the actor that played Butterfly Joe was hysterical. The soundtrack which was a great mix of electronica and other genres, makes it so much better. And the special effects were subtle, but impressive. The effects didn't slap you in the face like the Hong Kong film Shaolin Soccer (even though I enjoyed that one too). Overall a great movie. Rent or buy it and check out the soundtrack.

This movie is a superb adaptation of the flabbergasting manga series by genius Taiyo Matsumoto; the director has truly made a tremendously good work! The actors are well-chosen and very good in their role, the picture is great (a "manga-style" centring, which is very interesting) and the story never gets boring, even if the film is over two hours.

I was impressed and have only very few negative comments to make, but I think they only concern things that have been lost in translation. The movie needs a certain knowledge of Japanese society to be fully understood, but is also funny to anyone who does not know much about it. Deliciously delirious!

I was incredibly lucky to get to view this on real film, and loved it. It turned the rather interesting sport of ping pong into a watchable, hyper, twisting story of friendship. I occasionally cried. The cinematography and special effects are splendid -- they bring it in touch with the manga it was based on, without making it inaccessibly over-produced. Also, the casting is fantastic; you can tell that the actors were type-cast, but the movie only seems to benefit from it. As others have mentioned, the soundtrack was excellent -- if Simon & Garfunkel and Japancakes collaborated on Asian pop, I think it would sound a lot like this. My only reservation is on the subbing; though it's better than dubbed would ever be, something is occasionally lost in translation when innocent phrases in Japanese end up translating into English as something connotatively very different.

There's a lot of great stuff coming from Japan these days and it's not on horror flicks about stylized spirits and discordant ghostly sounds. "Ping Pong" has something and it captures a feel that many people I know who have visited Japan felt on first viewing "Lost In Translation". It looks like Tokyo and it looks like hyper-real Tokyo at the same time.

But this is a very, very different story from "Lost In Translation". Based on a manga, this is a surreal and existential and neo-Zen comedy about the competitive world of young ping pong players in modern Japan. Peco and Smile are two players who have been friends since their youth. Peco (Yosuke Kubozuka of "Go" and "Tomie: Replay") is the brash and outrageous champion who crushes all opponents while rubbing their face in it. Smile (Arata from "Afterlife") is the better player (he's called Smile because he never does - Excellent!) but isn't especially interested and often loses on purpose to Peco out of some sort of loyalty. Not only does this anger his coach (a former ping pong star) but it gives Peco a further inflated ego.

During an inter-school competition, both are defeated. Peco loses to the champ of the disciplinarian, militaristic school of skinheads named Dragon (newcomer Shido Nakamura). Smile loses to China (Sam Lee of "Gen-X Cops" and "Public Toilet"), so named, as that's where he is a pro and he's just in Japan to kick start his career (sort of like when a ball player gets sent back down to the minors for a tune-up). Needless to say, the rest of the movie involves the two needing to pick themselves up off the floor solving the inequities of their friendship along the way. And of course, it all is heading back to a great rematch.

This is a lot of fun as the competitions are startling in their originality and quite beautiful at times. There are some amazing epiphanies from one character re-christening himself in a river, one of the skinheads getting his due and when Dragon learns to play ping pong completely for pleasure.

I'll also say this; the soundtrack is amazing. I don't know who any of these groups are. They're all Japanese. But we were all jumping up and down to the music the first time we saw it. If you have an all-region DVD player, I would suggest you get the Japanese disc as it comes with a feature where you can watch the whole movie with just the music soundtrack.