Review by aodugo

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.