Yes, so full of every cliché connected to these film genres,
the sports movie and the romantic comedy, that's it's almost a satire.
But, it's charming and Feel Good so it works fine for an enjoyable watch,
and the actors were all fine too and not the least then
Yui Aragaki's - Gakky's table tennis girl Tamako.
Table-Tennis !? Yes, a really cool sport and surprisingly well suitable
for a Sports movie, as seen before in the Japanese 2002
drama-comedy "Ping Pong" directed by Fumihiko Masuri. Some
sports are well suited to be made into The Sports Movie genre
and some are Not. Baseball, boxing, american football, martial arts
and table-tennis works well, But football, tennis, athletics -
Not so - as actors trying to pass as football/soccer- or tennis-players
or athletes are all cruelly exposed as fakes.
Gakky
Tamako Tomita (popsinger, model and actress Yui Aragaki
- Gakky) and her family has a Table-Tennis club and as a child Tamako
was trained in a hard way by her ex-elite player mother (Yoko Maki),
in a too harsh way, and Tamako quitted playing when 13.
Now, when she's 28 years old and hasn't played for 15 years she works
at an office where she falls in love with a member of the
office table-tennis team, Akihiko (Koji Seto). They have a love affair,
but when he dumps her for his new mixed doubles partner
Airi (Mei Nagano) Tamako quits the company and returns to her home town
and the now dilapidated Flower Table-Tennis Cub.
As this a Sports film she decides to win back her ex-boyfriend
by becoming his doubles partner And she starts training again. But her
Club need more members to survive and her plan is to compete in the
Japanese Nationals and in the mixed doubles category, as
that is the the least favoured by the elite players, and with some hard
training maybe they can make some impact and get publicity.
The Flower Table-Tennis Cub
Her Club consists of only 6 members: Herself, a middle-aged
tomato growing couple (Kenichi Endo and Misako Tanaka), her old
school buddy Yayoi (Ryoko Hirosue), nerdy teenager Yuma (Hayato Sano)
and ex-boxer and construction worker Hagiwara (Eita).
As their coaches they make a surprise finding in the local sushi restaurant
owners (Yu Aoi and Hiroyuki Morisaki), a Chinese
couple that once was members of the Chinese National Team. Ha, ha, they're
great in their small parts.
Entertaining Japanese Feel Good sports romantic comedy and i had a good
time watching it
The film was presented in anamorphic widescreen with
a japanese audio DD 5.1 with english subtitles, region 3, trailer, gallery
