Kung fu, pingpong meet in ‘balls of fury’

Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007 | 10 p.m.

“Balls of Fury” (PG-13, 90 minutes). K

Pingpong is to tennis as foosball is to soccer. I know it's on cable now, with lots of controversy over slower balls and faster paddles, but it retains for me only memories of rainy days at summer camp. I have never lost all affection for the sport, however, and am careful to play it at least once every decade. Thus it was with great eagerness that I attended “Balls of Fury,” which is, I think, the first movie combining pingpong and kung fu. Former child pingpong phenom Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler), now in his 20s and grown pudgy, is discovered in Las Vegas by Rodriguez (George Lopez), an FBI agent who wants him to get back into training so he can compete undercover in an illegal global pingpong and martial arts tournament run by the evil criminal weapons dealer Mr. Feng (Christopher Walken). Co-starring James Hong as blind Master Wong and Maggie Q as his niece, who act as Daytona's coaches. Don't expect me to explain the rules and purposes of the tournament, if it has any. I was preoccupied with observing the sheer absurdity of everything on the screen, including Daytona's old pingpong archenemy Karl Wolfschtagg (co-writer Tom Lennon.

(Revewed by Roger Ebert.)

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