| Product: |
Balls Of Fury (DVD) |
| Date: |
08.02.08 (110 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Walken, sheer stupidity, characters and Walken :o)
Disadvantages: Fogler not that great, it is very very stupid!
Balls of Fury is one of those marmite films... you will either love it or hate it. It is very similar to the Will Ferrell/Jon Heder ice skating comedy 'Blades of Glory' in that it is very very stupid, involves a former sports champion who has lost his way and a journey to regain his honour and name... well kind of!
Randy Daytona was twelve when he was at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He was the red hot favourite for the table tennis gold and America's darling. There was no way he was going to lose, unless something made him nervous or distracted him. His father did just this by telling him he had bet a fortune on his son winning with the local Triads. Faced with this Daytona fell apart and not only lost but embarrassed himself the world over.
18 years later Randy still plays, but not competitively. Now he is a table tennis entertainer, performing his trick shots and amazing skills for bored patrons who watch while eating at some low quality casino.
But now his peculiar skills are needed. Su Feng, the man who had his father killed when he couldn't pay up in '88, is thought to be a major weapons smuggler and arms dealer. The FBI have tried but cannot get anywhere near him to find evidence until they find out that he is about to hold an invitation only table tennis tournament in his secret island base. If Randy can get an invite then they have a way of getting an agent in and maybe shutting down the evil crimelord. As an added bonus Randy may once again prove himself the best in the world and regain his name and honour.
Ok Balls of Fury has possibly the craziest plotline of any major film that I have seen for a long time (apart from Shaolin Soccer maybe but then the Asian market is a lot more open to strange films then the UK/US it seems) but it kind of works. Far too many of the jokes fall flat but when they do work they really do work.
Balls of Fury, much like Blades of Glory, really should not work in any way. It has no big star in the main part (Dan Fogler plays Randy, seen in Good Luck Chuck recently), has no real hook to pull you in with and has a trailer that makes you think they have shown you all the best bits; which in a sense they have, but it also has an almost depraved sense of lunacy about it. Like any action film you just have to shut your brain off and accept everything, no matter how crazy, that is going on... that there is such a thing as an underground table tennis circuit, that ping pong is the ultimate way of deciding animosities in Chinatown and that a blind man can be a ping pong teacher.
To compensate for a little known star the makers have filled out the cast with some top quality. James Hong as Master Wong, the blind teacher, Robert Patrick and Pete Daytona, Randy's dad, Maggie Q as Maggie Wong.
Popping up in smaller parts are Jason Scott Lee, Diedrich Bader and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, all good, if little known actors.
The man who steals every scene though is the inimitable Christopher Walken. He delivers his lines with the utmost seriousness, but in a way only he can. You know exactly what to expect from Walken in this kind of role and he delivers in every respect. The man is a genius. In Balls of Fury he can make you laugh with just a twitch of his face, the raise of an eyebrow or with a glint in his eye.
Also worth a mention is George Lopez, who plays Agent Ernie Rodriguez. His chemistry with Fogler hold the film together during its ropey moments and keeps your interest while waiting for the next moment of hilarity. He is as useless as Daytona, only given the mission to enact because it is the least likely to succeed out of all the FBIs plans to catch Feng, and their camaraderie works very well.
Balls of Fury isn't as good as Blades of Glory, it misses its' mark far too often to be really compared, but there are more than enough moments of inspired lunacy in it to make it worth watching if you enjoy this kind if film, or liked Blades of Glory.
Summary: Ping Pong gets a comedy makeover
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