Ping Pong Playa (2007)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: A gentle, light, kid friendly comedy about a Chinese-American hoopster turned ping pong pro, Playa is a charming but considerable digression from director Jessica Yu's previous works.
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Movie Info
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Cast
as Christopher 'C-Dub' Wang
as D. B. Reddy
as Michael Wang
as Teenage Ping Pong Player
as Loser Kid 1
as Dan Furlie
as Mrs. Wang
as Kevin
as Jennifer
as Cheryl
as Mrs. Sun
as Loser Kid
as Prabakar
as Mrs. Chen
as Mr. Wang
as Tom
as Gerald
as JP Money
as Felix
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Critic Reviews for Ping Pong Playa
All Critics (33) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (21) | Rotten (12) | DVD (2)
Mostly a little shrewder about stereotypes than your typical slacker comedy, deriving its edge from Yu and Tsai's mining of the cultural specificity of Asian-America for laughs
Charming despite requisite training sequences and a cartoonishly evil opponent.
Ping Pong Playa falters on formula only occasionally, but otherwise remains a consistently agreeable romp that strikes just the right chord of ironic sentimentally.
There's no resisting the movie's antic affability or its irreverence, even with Chris's unavoidable progression toward the mature appreciation of his roots.
The movie doesn't take its broad, jokey premise terribly far, but it manages to sustain a goofy-sweet comic energy and offers sly observations about assimilation, sibling rivalry and the art of competitive maternal bragging.
A decidedly lightweight amusement, the first comedy from documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu is the sort of movie that works best if you keep your expectations low.
Audience Reviews for Ping Pong Playa
"People always think that, you know, Chinese people are only good at math, martial arts, and mu shu pork, you know? But basketball, hey, that was really my thing back in the day, you know what I'm saying? I used to play on the JV squad." Ping Pong Playa is about Christopher "C-Dub" Wang. He's an underachieving, lazy young adult who has no ambitions. He spends his time playing video games, reading comic books, and making up excuses about why he's not in the NBA. Obviously it's genetic, he is Chinese and says that we are all short. He starts teaching a ping pong class and ultimately ends up competing in a ping pong competition in order to keep his families ping pong business thriving. Honestly I expected to find Ping Pong Playa horrible. It's anything but horrible though. Jimmy Tsai as C-Dub was great. The ping pong scenes were really well done. The movie was very funny and had a lot to say about different stereotypes, such as Chinese people can't drive. Ping Pong Playa turned out to be a cool little movie. Hey, it beats Balls of Fury.
Super Reviewer
Totally ridiculous and very well done : )
Super Reviewer
Stupid, but made me laugh. I ended up liking it...
Super Reviewer
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