This thin premise can't sustain a feature, and the racial and gay jokes are jarring, but the child actors are cute.
Comment
09/03/08
Ping Pong Playa (2007)
66
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:21
Rotten:11
Average Rating:5.9/10
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.
Reviews for Ping Pong Playa
To be perfectly blunt, Ping Pong Playa is third-rate crap. Unfunny crap. Unnecessary crap. This little entertainment is also unintentionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic, poorly acted, and shapeless.
09/04/08
An endless stream of near-misses.
01/16/09
Dull, predictable and unoriginal ... the main character is so annoyingly silly it's hard to put up with him for an entire movie.
09/02/08
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.
09/05/08
Interest in Playa lies in the fact that director Jessica Yu is a documentarian with a daring taste in subjects. Yet in her first non-doc feature, she plays it safe; even the championship showdown feels polite.
09/05/08
The setup has been trotted out a million times before, and the movie’s novel SoCal Chinese-American milieu only partially excuses the familiarity.
09/04/08
Jessica Yu's film, a 180-degree tonal shift from her previous Protagonist, diligently retreads Adam Sandler and Napoleon Dynamite territory.
09/02/08
Gently pokes fun at model minority and athletic stereotypes, but gets repetitive and wears thin before the engaging plot finally kicks into gear.
11/01/08
One way to break down cultural walls is assimilation, and that's where Ping Pong Playa has its dubious triumph: it's just about as generic as the next 'loser makes good by coaching kids' comedy...[Blu-ray]
02/15/09
Very broad humor and sloppy storytelling pave the way to a requisite Rocky ending.
09/05/08
[W]hen the characters are this charming and the dialogue is this smart, you won't mind watching a little white ball clonk its way from paddle to tabletop and back again.
09/02/08
Ace documentarian Jessica Yu's fictional feature debut ... is mostly funny and often cute, but it suffers a bit in comparison to the very similar Foot Fist Way ...
11/12/08
Asian-American cinema breaks out of its identity crisis with a comedy that is competitive with the American standard while addressing social and cultural issues particular to minority audiences.
09/11/08
Bright and hilarious, Ping Pong Playa is a so-silly-it's-smart comedy starring Jimmy Tsai, whose uproarious cinematic id, C-dub, is a character I would be happy to watch for many sequels to come.
09/04/08
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.
09/11/08
A mostly amusing, appealing family comedy about going from pretender to contender, in life as well as pingpong.
09/05/08
This lighter-than-air comedy couldn't be more different from director Jessica Yu's previous entry, 'Protagonist.'
07/24/08
Overall the movie was enjoyable but not amazing.
11/04/08
A fleet-footed, featherweight comedy riddled with cliches, but nonetheless charming and winning.
09/04/08
Latest News for Ping Pong Playa
September 04, 2008:
Box Office Guru Preview: Cage Offers One Night in Bangkok
Multiplexes will be filled this weekend...with tumbleweeds. The frame after the Labor Day holiday is often the worst-performing session of the whole year at the box office and... More...
September 03, 2008:
RT Exclusive: Ping Pong Playa featurette!
Ping pong. Has its time come at last? The sport's been getting more and more attention from the movies, the latest arriving in the form of Ping Pong Playa. Rotten Tomatoes has... More...
July 20, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review 
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