| Ping Pong Playa | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Jessica Yu |
| Produced by | Anne Clements Joan Huang Jeffrey Gou |
| Written by | Jimmy Tsai Jessica Yu |
| Starring | Jimmy Tsai Andrew Vo Khary Payton Jim Lau Roger Fan Elizabeth Sung Javin Reid Kevin Chung Peter Paige Smith Cho Scott Lowell Stephnie Weir |
| Music by | Jeff Beal |
| Cinematography | Frank G. Demarco |
| Editing by | Zene Baker |
| Distributed by | IFC Films |
| Release date(s) | Toronto International Film Festival September 9, 2007 United States limited September 5, 2008 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Chinese |
Ping Pong Playa is a 2007 comedy film directed by Jessica Yu and written by Jessica Yu and Jimmy Tsai[1]. The story centers on an Asian ping pong family with a buffoonish and irreverent son.
Contents |
The story focuses on Christoper "C-Dub" Wang (pronounced Wong), a tough-talking Chinese-American teenager living at his parents' house with no responsibilities, running one dead-end job after another. He continuously picks fights with Caucasians for what he considers offensive remarks about Chinese people, and plots get-rich-quick schemes with his friend JP Money. His brother Michael is a successful doctor and ping pong champion, and his parents work in a ping pong shop and teach ping pong lessons at the local Chinese community center. C-Dub, however, rejects his family tradition as "uncool" and strives to play in the NBA.
Michael becomes distracted while picking his mother up from ping pong class, seeing C-Dub play on a minibike with JP, and rear-ends a truck in the parking lot. While neither are fatally wounded, they both sprain their wrists, forcing them to temporarily leave their occupations to recover. C-Dub is thrust into becoming a substitute teacher for his mother against his will, finding a class full of dysfunctional children: an obese boy with compulsive eating habits, a talented but socially awkward Indian boy whose father operates a textile mill, and an earlier acquaintance from the basketball court, among others. Initially he dismisses them, ignoring his duties and instead pursuing new interest in one of the boys' beautiful older sister, who rejects him for his snarky personality, competing with a rival ping pong teacher for her attention. When his younger friend offers him bribes to play ping pong with them, C-Dub takes advantage of them as a money-making opportunity, much to the disgust of the children's parents.
Word of this arrives to C-Dub's parents, who become furious with him. His mother eventually convinces him to return the money to the kids, and soon after he begins to genuinely bond with them. When the rival teacher begins to pass around flyers to lure the children away from his class, C-Dub begins to take ping pong much more seriously, eventually entering in National Golden Cock tournament in his brother's place to compete with him. However, he begins to conflict with his father, who is disgusted by his attitude towards ping pong and takes him up as an apprentice. He explains that the British believe that they invented ping pong as a variation of tennis and consider the Chinese inferior to them and that C-Dub's victory in the tournament would not only defend their belief and earn him prize money, but would boost his family's reputation, sparking interest in their store and their ping pong class.
C-Dub is initially cocky when he enters the tournament, sponsored by the company Killerspin, but panics when he loses his first match. His father confronts him, reminding him that his whole childhood he had been avoiding anything that risked failure, including ping pong, and that this is his chance to face his fears and overcome them. Motivated by this and support from his friends and family, including an initially mocking JP, C-Dub perseveres, taking his game much more seriously, and reaches the final confrontation with the rival teacher. After a heated battle, C-Dub eventually prevails, much to the Chinese families' delight.
Several months later, C-Dub's father's vision has come true: the family's business has become profitable and Mrs. Wang's ping pong class is overflowing with new students. Other characters in the story have happy endings as well: the obese kid has lost weight and dropped his eating habits, the Indian boy has become successful with a line of shoes he designed in a partnership with JP, making him a successful businessman, and C-Dub himself becomes the guest of honor in the city parade.