Credited cast: | |||
Yôsuke Kubozuka | ... | Yutaka Hoshino / Peco | |
Arata Iura | ... | Makoto Tsukimoto / Smile (as Arata) | |
Sam Lee | ... | Kong Wenge / China | |
Shidô Nakamura | ... | Ryûichi Kazama / Dragon | |
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Kôji Ohkura | ... | Manabu Sakuma / Demon |
Naoto Takenaka | ... | Butterfly Joe | |
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Mari Natsuki | ... | Obaba |
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
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Yoshiyoshi Arakawa | ||
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Takahiro Hirano | ||
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Mako Ishino | ||
Kôen Kondô | |||
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Erika Mabuchi | ||
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Suzuki Matsuo | ... | Policeman |
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Asumi Miwa | ||
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Ayumu Moriyama |
The film traces the growth and friendship of two very different high-school ping-pong players. "Peco" Hoshino is a brash, arrogant player, determined to turn pro. He taught his quiet, nerdy childhood friend "Smile" Tsukimoto. Smile frustrates his coach and rivals, who recognize his talent for the game since it is just a game to him. To teach him, his high-school coach learns that coaching is more than just training the students to be good ping-pong players. Ironically, as Smile begins to develop his game, Peco undergoes a severe crisis after his defeat by rival players and is unable to play well until he rediscovers the original reasons why he plays ping-pong. Written by nakataohana
1st watched 3/20/2009 6 out of 10(Dir-Sori): Karate kid-type ping pong movie sort of entertains because it focuses on the characters near the end of the movie instead of just the results of the competition. Some of the movie is irritatibly similar to the previous-mentioned movie in the main storyline. Basically, the movie is about two friends, who are opposites as far as their characters, but both enjoy playing ping pong but for different reasons. Peco, is the more carefree hero wannabe character who just enjoys the game. Smiles(called this because he doesn't do this often) is much more serious but initially plays just to pass the time(supposedly). Peco loses a big match and decides to retire from the game and during this time Smiles gets much better and becomes the dominant player(despite the fact that he used to look to Peco as his hero). Peco then tries to make a comeback under the tutelage of a woman instructor in the vain of movies like "Rocky" and "Karate Kid." Near the end, the movie returns to looking into these two characters more closely and turns what could have been a formulaic movie into something a little better. Again it takes another country to show us Americans how to make this type of movie better. Good for them!! and good for us to be able to view the movie!!