IMDb plot summary: A kid dreams of playing professional basketball in order to escape his dead-end job, living in the suburbs, his bossy older brother and running his Mom's ping pong classes.
Directed by Jessica Yu. Starring Jimmy Tsai, Andrew Vo, Khary Payton, and Jim Lau.
In many ways, this follows a pretty typical sports movie trajectory. There's the underdog, the unusually high stakes for the big game, the mean jerks on the opposing team. But it feels a bit fresher and newer because of the unusual choice of sport (ping-pong) and because of our main character, who thinks of himself as a much more important athlete than we do as an audience. He consistently straddles the line between entertaining and annoying but ultimately lands on the former for me. The movie overall is fun and sweet and has enough going for it that I had a good time watching it, even if it didn't stand out a whole lot.
3 stars.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Ping Pong Playa > Molly's Game
Ping Pong Playa < Show Me Love
Ping Pong Playa < Bridge of Spies
Ping Pong Playa < War Horse
Ping Pong Playa > Company (2011)
Ping Pong Playa > The Mistress of Spices
Ping Pong Playa > Don Jon
Ping Pong Playa > Charlie St. Cloud
Ping Pong Playa > Bill Cunningham New York
Ping Pong Playa > Safety Not Guaranteed
Ping Pong Playa < The Tourist
Final spot: #1269 out of 2893.
No comments:
Post a Comment