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.

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.

the movie is about these two boys who have been friends since they were young. they are both on the ping pong club team. the main character peco is a cocky kid who thinks that he is great, though he is, his best friend "smile" (because he doesnt) is equily as good but doesnt let himself try. the two join a tournament and peco loses to an easy foe while smile beats the only person to ever beat peco... make sense? anyway, the two separate. peco loses his will to play and smile trains harder than ever. they meet again at another tournament where at the end they are put against eachother by elimination. i think that the characters in this movie are pretty interesting. the acting for the most part is fairly good but also a little over the top in a few scenes because of how animated the peco character is. a few things are also pretty far fetched. i would say that it is overall a good movie but you cant take it too seriously or you will be let down.

if you like this movie check out aoi haru (blue spring) it is based off of a manga by the same author that wrote ping pong... though much more violent, this movie is a fantastic movie. i would say to also check out kyoki no sakura staring kabozuke yosuke, also much more violent in nature, but a fantastic movie aswell.

This was one of those movies that I really had to force myself to watch and ended up loving.

It's a story more about the nature of friendship than the actual sport of ping pong.

As with a lot of Japanese cinema, the movie takes a while to get moving, but don't let this deter you. The special effects are fantastic. Basically, I didn't even know there were special effects until I'd finished watching it.

There are a few laugh out loud moments, although some of the humour requires a knowledge of Japan. My favourite moment is the boy who doesn't want to play in the tournament because his opponent is Chinese.

While I should have found the ending schmaltzy, I actually found it quite touching. I have no hesitation in recommending this movie to anyone.

I watched this movie the first time last summer and I really liked it. Now after seeing it the second time I absolutely adore it. The ending almost got me into tears and that's really something.

Ping Pong is about friendship and well, table tennis. I really don't think you can call this a normal sport film because that's kind of a lame term. And this isn't a lame film.

The directing is good and acting too and the whole mood of this flick is stunning, especially in the end. I got the shivers.

Too bad that this is, at least for most people, really hard to find. I'm glad my friend went to Japan and by mistake got this film and then gave this to me. A weird coincidence.