Ping Pong! Watch It!
I've always been a big big fan of Asian cinema but for one reason or another, I haven't been watching too many Asian films of late. I got a huge backlog of Korean films to watch, not to mention a bunch of Celestial remastered Shaw Brothers classics I need to get my hands on. But tonight, I was finally in the mood to catch up on some of my unwatched DVDs so I popped in Ping Pong, a Japanese film from 2002.I have to admit....I'm not the biggest Japanese film fan. I've found a lot of them to be disappointing after reading lots of the hype. Versus was fun for a while, then just stupid. I didn't find Audition entertaining at all and the famous torture scene left me thinking..."that's it?!" Brother? Boring. Juon - Okay...but a little slow. The only one I've really enjoyed so far was Battle Royale, which I found to be fresh and fun.
Well...add another movie to the "I like this Japanese movie" list, cuz I really liked Ping Pong! It's a movie based on a manga (comic book) and I just really dug the whole movie. Smile and Peco are 2 best friends in high school who play ping pong. Smile plays reluctantly, only to kill time, while Peco has ambitions of being the best player in the world. Of course, there are rival players from rival schools, including Sam Lee as a transfer from China who's quite intimidating.
Ping Pong is a traditional sports movie, with the cliched ups and downs but the story is well written. Even the "villains" are written as 3-dimensional people with complete stories, rather than cardboard cutout badguys. And of course...you gotta love a movie with training sequences! Rocky, Rudy, Karate Kid, all have awesome training sequences and so does Ping Pong. And Yosuke Kubozuka is so charming as Peco. I wanna be that guy!Overall, it's a very entertaining film and I recommend it to everyone. Check it out if ya can!
posted by Myong Choi at 11:06 PM
6 Comments:
Where did you get your copy from? I been lookin' for this DVD to give to MSO but couldn't find it online. Seems like they have Chinese versions of it online, but I rather have the Japanese version. Was going to check Toys N' Joys but never made it.
Do you have an all Region DVD player? If so, you have many options to buy. Is there a particular reason you want the Japanese version? Japanese versions of DVDs are always way more expensive. I have the Hong Kong release of the DVD but it makes no difference on the film itself cuz the audio is still in Japanese and it has English subs.
If you do have an all Region player, looking around online I see the Japanese version (Region 2) for $59.95 and the HK version (Region 3) for $9.99.
Or if you like....I can give you a copy of my DVD. Just let me know.
Don't think we got an all region DVD player.
Okay, so although there are different "releases" of this movie, the audio of the movie is still in Japanese with English subs? Not that I can understand much anyway but we do know people that could and I'd be disappointed to watch a Japanese movie without the Japanese audio. Make sense? =S
Yep, no worries. Any version you buy, whether Japanese, Chinese, etc. will all have the original Japanese audio with English subs.
If you don't have an all Region player, then there is a Region 1 (USA region) version coming out at the end of August at DVDAsian.com.
Or I can just give you a copy. It'll be no problem at all. The copy would be region free. Just say the word...
oops! the link above goes to the wrong page. here's the correct link:
Ping Pong Region 1 DVD at DVDAsian.com
Thanks so much for the offer! I'm going to look if there are other DVDs on that site I want to get. If there are, I may just buy it. But if not then I'll take you up on your offer. Appreciate it!
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