Let's be honest, this is a terrible movie. What an odd mix of veteran actors (Susan Sarandon, Leah Thompson etc.) quite literally smashing up against terrible novices like the lead character's sidekick, Myles Massey. I continue to be amazed that people are actually paid to cast movies and they come up with bad actors all the time. The sidekick role is crucial here, yet they choose a kid who can't act. Go figure. Watching Sarandon, John Hannah and Leah Thompson attempt to add some flow to the movie while working with terrible actors reminds me of Natalie Portman struggling with Robot Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels. I guess it has something to do with movie budget; perhaps they ran out of money after paying Sarandon, Hannah and Thompson. Every once it awhile we see some promise, as when Rad and his family visit his Aunt and her husband. Amy Sedaris and Robert Longstreet show how it's done and provide a hint of what the movie might have been. Also Rad's sister was more than adequate in her role. All this aside, the movie does well with costumes and general 1980s era eastern shore vibe, that's about it. The pacing is excruciating as we wait for lead character Rad to meet up with Susan Sarandon and when he finally does, it's almost a throwaway scene and before you know it we're (mercifully) at the finish line. If the director was attempting some sort of filmmaking homage, I missed it completely. So much more could have been done for the eastern shore/Ocean City in a movie like this. I'm being brutally honest when I say that all during the movie I kept thinking how I could have rounded up some buddies and a mini HD camera and done a much better job. I kid you not. It's that bad.

One's impression while watching this film is fairly mixed: there were many parts that made it funnier than the typical Hollywood Asian rip-off (intentionally so) which kept me interested in the film. Furthermore, the acting is not as bad as typical of this genre, and I found some of the characters especially expressive and entertaining. However, the fault of the film is that it falls victim to many of the errors of US rips on Japanese cinema: the quality being grainy and questionable, the simplicity of the plot and having shocking simplicity in the archetypes of good & evil, and furthermore, being overall rather corny. But if you can stand for a typical "re-imagined" B movie, this is not so bad; I found it entertaining and its' pong scenes were not very shabby, either. And furthermore, the film did not fall victim to any ridiculous subplot or added Twilight-esque love-stories, nor was it ruined by an overwhelming personality clogging up the story, which can easily kill other films. For what they have, a decent film. If you see it for what it is, it is not hard to watch and enjoy it. Decent for anybody who has an attachment to the genre.

This film is about a teenager who takes up ping pong ball by chance during a family summer holiday in a seaside town. I guess this film is more about the story than the acting, but I still think "Ping Pong Summer" can be better in this aspect. The teenage actors are not very convincing, only the Gothic sister is good. The plot is probably supposed to be inspiring, but it turns out to be very flat and not very engaging. Maybe it's because there's no ups then downs, or maybe there's not enough intensive training, or the psychological motivation to win is not presented to be strong enough. The plot fails to interest me. I wonder why Susan Sarandon got involved with this project. And the film could have cast all unknowns to save on budget.