Ping Pong Playa Blu-ray Edition
Jimmy Tsai and a bunch of other lesser or unknown actors star in Ping Pong Playa, a humorous comedy about a loser Chinese-American who is forced to play in a ping pong tournament for his brother.
Film making 10/25
Cinematography 10/25
Audio 15/25
Bonus Features 5/25
Total 40/100
Ping Pong Playa tries dubiously to make its point but it ends up in a convoluted message of right and wrong and personal responsibility. Jimmy Tsai plays Christopher C-dub Wang, a young punk of a son who finds responsibility and work a waste of his time.
Chris Wong is the son of a Chinese ping pong store owner who gets customers because his older son wins a tournament every year. Winning the tournament draws in students to his wife’s classes at the local community center and families to their store for gear.
When Chris is out goofing off on a mini bike instead of working his brother sees him and crashes into another vehicle, injuring himself and his mother. This puts both out of commission for classes and the upcoming ping pong tournament so Chris must take over classes for his mom.
A rival pair of English ping pong players are also competing in the tournament trying to vie for the title as well as open a ping pong store of their own. When further bad luck and set up circumstances lead to Chris wanting to play in the tournament his father reluctantly trains.
Ping Pong Playa seems more like a last ditch effort to find some sort of sport that has not already been filmed dozens of times. It lacks a decent story and actors that feel their parts enough to give any believability to their roles.
This is a silly movie that has little redeeming value as a sports film as well as a decent comedy or a film about morals and family values. The whole thing starts to smack of a sorry excuse for a sports movie that lacks a thrilling sport or good athletes but in the end it’s just not funny enough or appealing enough to bother with.
In the end Chris Wang wins the tournament, of course, and retains the family’s honor as well as the business interests of the Wang’s. At the end of the movie we see the ping pong class the Wang family teaches full and talk of moving to a bigger gym because so many people want to learn the great sport of ping pong.
The Blu-ray edition of Ping Pong Playa contains the commentary track and some extra scenes as well as a biography on some of the cast and crew but nothing else. There is not much here for extra content and with a movie that ends up being a somewhat funny comedy with a lesser sport as its main theme there really is not much here at all.
Ping Pong Playa may be a sports film comedy but it also does not appeal to all audiences with a very broad review score from critics that I have to agree with. The film is just too convoluted and the actors just do not bring the film together to complement the story that is decent.
Overall Ping Pong Playa is more a movie to rent and see if you enjoy but a purchase would be out of the question in my opinion.