First saw this at the Eugene DisOrient Asian Film Festival over a year ago. Funniest movie I've seen in ages. Minimal spoilers below...
This is the story of a younger son in a Chinese-American family who is struggling with his identity and his cultural responsibility. His elder brother is a ping pong champion, and the entire family's finances are contingent on the reputation of the family and their performance at a local ping pong tournament. You can figure out the rest from there.
But this charming, hilarious, incredibly well-thought out movie by relative movie unknowns has more class, humor, and intelligence than most mainstream Hollywood comedies I've seen. The vast majority of the humor is applicable to all races, all cultures, all walks of life... there are a few jokes and intimations specific to the Asian-American community... but I loved this movie so much I pre-ordered the DVD, feeling grateful that it actually made it out of it's film festival beginnings (into limited more mainstream release, but not where I live), onto DVD.
It's based on the classic athletic competition motif. The oppressive, aggressive professional athlete coming to take over small local town ping pong hero. Family obligation. Cultural expectations. Identity/social self-exploration/finding. Touching characters with some depth.
The humor is classy, clever, witty. It is not very subtle, just outright fun. Language is pretty clean for a comedy, but still has quite a bit of profanity (teenage locker room talk) that is partially obscured by the sound of a bouncing ball or ping pong paddle hit or similar as a sort of tongue-in-cheek (ha, that's a pun!) censor. Depending on your sensitivity to this sort of thing, appropriate for teens (13-14+), but prepare to cover the ears of your child if younger. Subject material is otherwise pretty clean, and appropriate for even younger than teenaged kids.
It's a great film, IMO.
-vk
