Rut #3 - Scott Talbot

Ping Pong was a great movie. Looking at the previous posts much of what I wanted to say has been said: it was funny, unique, touching, and the cinematography during the matches was great.

There is one thing that I really appreciated about the movie. During the matches they completely avoided the cliche use of the scoreboard to drive the tension. In most American sports movies we, the audience, must be shown the scoreboard every three to ten seconds so we know exactly what the score is. For most of the time in Ping Pong we were unaware of what the score was, and instead had to focus on the tension of the characters playing the game. At first this kind of bothered me "what's the score!" I kept thinking, but then I realized that it actually made the movie even better.

In fact, in the last match they didn't bother to have the high tension buzzer win that is ever so common in American sports films. Rather it let us experience greater meaning through the development of the characters. Specifically seeing the picture of Smile, just barely breaking a smile.

While this was my first visit to BYU International Cinema, it was of course not my first foreign film. What I do love about foreign films is the unique characters and storylines that keep us Americans guessing.

Good flick.

Enter the hero.