Nostalgia Kinky

88 Films has released a special limited Blu-ray edition of the 2002 Japanese sports drama Ping Pong. Directed by Fumihiko Sori, Ping Pong arrives on Blu-ray from 88 Films in a very nice Ob-stripped package featuring a colorful booklet and a few nice supplements. Order now from 88 Films or here in the States from MVD.

Fullmetal Alchemist (2017) filmmaker Fumihiko Sori makes his feature-length debut with his earlier Ping Pong. He received a Japanese Oscar nomination for his work on this first feature, prompting a film career that continues to this day. Sori, who has specialized in action films since Ping Pong, is currently working on an adaptation of Darwin’s Game.

Ping Pong is itself an adaptation. Unlike the home video game-inspired titles in Sori’s filmography, a manga inspired his debut. Created by celebrated Taiyō Matsumoto, the original Ping Pong Manga proved quite acclaimed and popular. It also helped provide Sori with a built-in audience for his very earliest film.

Matsumoto’s Manga was assigned to screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, who has gone to have a fascinatingly varied career in and out of the film world. Ping Pong is one of the earliest scripts from Kudo, best known for writing Isao Yukisada’s 2001 film Go (not to be confused with the excellent American film of the same name).

Ping Pong has a nice, mostly youthful ensemble cast, all of whom deliver believable, well-drawn performances. The lead ‘Paco’ is played by Yosuke Kubozuka, another figure from Ping Pong who has a fine filmography to his credit, including works as varied as Scorsese’s Silence (2016) and the absolutely amazing Helter Skelter (2012), which is also available from 88 Films.

Ping Pong is one of the films cinematographer Akira Sako shot in the wake of his work on the popular J-horror film, Tomie (1999). Ping Pong’s very bright and relatively pleasant look makes it hard to comprehend this is the same eye that photographed something like Tomie, although a glance at his interesting filmography reveals that his much-discussed work on Tomie is more of an outlier than this sports film. 

Set around a high-profile table-tennis tournament, Ping Pong does indeed feature a lot of game footage (well edited by Soichi Ueno), but it is more a coming-of-age film than perhaps anything else. Regardless of genre, Ping Pong is fairly straightforward and doesn’t offer many narrative surprises. 

88 Films release of Ping Pong doesn’t include anyone connected directly with the making of the film on its supplements, despite this being a fairly modern production. We do get quality appreciations of Sori’s film and information about the original Manga, from both Michael Arias and Jasper Sharp. Also on hand is a full-length commentary from Zack Davisson. This numbered edition of just 2000 copies also includes a nice essay from Jonathon Clement in its very attractive booklet. I really dig 88 Films design department btw.

Ping Pong’s strengths as a film mostly alluded me as much as my interest in watching table tennis in general. That said, the film’s admirers make a good case for it, and this release from 88 Films is certainly an ideal way to watch Ping Pong and learn about the graphic novel that inspired it.

-Jeremy Richey, August 2026-