Pipe dreams. We all have them. Many of which go unfulfilled. For Christopher ‘C-Dub’ Wang (Jimmy Tsai) his pipe dream is to be a professional basketball player. But he’s a slacker with a limited moveset; this man-child isn’t the second coming of Yao Ming. He still lives at home with his parents, he plays video games and reads comic books for fun, and when he isn’t grappling his PlayStation 2 controller he’s ballin’ at the neighborhood community center against elementary schoolers. Yes, elementary schoolers.
C-Dub is self-deprecating and comes off as a clown defending his Chinese ancestry. He’s a wannabe black kid (trapped in a Chinese man’s body) slinging phrases like “What up, dog?” to other Asian Americans. When his mother and ping pong champion brother get in a small car accident, it means no more Tomahawk Jams for C-Dub. He has to put away the basketball and pick up a paddle and teach his mother’s afternoon class.
Like all underdog stories, where the hero gets a burning desire to prevail when the deck is stacked against him, Ping Pong Playa‘s C-Dub is inspired to make his family proud. So he subs for his brother in the tournament. This is after first hustling some easy marks for twenty-a-pop games at the community center. Dog’s got a make a little coin. You feel me?
Billed as comedy, Playa, sadly, only generates modest laughs. Jimmy Tsai has the look of someone who’s lazy and doesn’t want to make something of himself, but his C-Dub character is thinly conceived. In an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, Tsai admitted that the comedy’s main inspiration was a series of ads he did for Venom Sportswear. Watching a few on Youtube, the ads are funny, given their one-minute running times. Actually, the more ads I watch, the more I notice that most of Tsai’s dialogue in the movie is taken from the commercials. So consider this movie a rehash, only with more characters and situations not entirely involving basketball.
Much of the laughter comes as a result of C-Dub’s mockery: trash-talking on the basketball court, calling an obese twelve-year-old ‘Free Willy’, jokes like that. Also, C-Dub lays down a few profanities that are muffled with the sounds of a bouncing basketball. It was fun the first few times, but then it gets absurd. Would have been better to insert a quick cutaway of someone bouncing a basketball or hitting a ping-pong ball. Better yet, reshoot the scenes without using the expletives, especially phrases that begin with the word “mother.”
The story has a fun premise overall (slacker adult becomes role model/ping-pong teacher for kids), but the execution isn’t all there. C-Dub is an entertaining enough character, but like the characters you see on Saturday Night Live, this is one that is best served in small spurts, not a full-blown movie.
For its debut on DVD, Ping Pong Playa is presented in its original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio. In the set-up options, you have two selectable audio tracks for the film – Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Surround. A third audio option is reserved for the commentary track with director Jessica Yu and Jimmy Tsai. The track is good-humored with Yu and Tsai reflecting on the production and share anecdotes of real-life experiences that found their way into the script.
Aside from the commentary track, the set of extras for this release is on the slim side. There’s a nine-minute blooper reel (labeled: PPP: Post-Game), two Venom Sportswear ads (inside PPP: Warm-Up Drills), the film’s theatrical trailer, and cast and crew bios. The only cast bio is for Tsai, the rest of the principle cast is nameless in this section.
Ping Pong Playa is not a strong comedy. It has some amusing bits – most of which appeal to the 11-15 year-old demo – but it feels like something that should have been made in the 1990s. But if you have a hankering to see Jimmy Tsai’s portrayal of a Chinese man wishing he were black, might I also suggest pairing it with Norbit and get the vice versa effect with Eddie Murphy. OK, so maybe that’s a cruel attempt at humor.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Image Enertainment presents Ping Pong Playa. Directed by Jessica Yu. Starring Jimmy Tsai. Written by Jessica Yu and Jimmy Tsai. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated PG-13. Released on DVD: January 6, 2009. Available at Amazon.com.
