The worst thing I can say about Ping Pong Playa is that the film seems poorly named. Perhaps the intention was irony, or just flashy marketing, but it seems more likely that Jessica Yu (with inspiration from the Venom Sportswear ad campaign) intended Ping Pong Playa to work on at least two levels. At the first level is a funny but lightweight flick about an aimless young man that manages to live his dream of being a great athlete... just not exactly as he planned. At the second level is a portrait of Chinese cultural integration in the young, suburban environment of modern California. A possible third level is commentary on the extent to which children are pressured by marketing and their parents to excel in competitive sports. Like any good piece of art, Ping Pong Playa can be appreciated at any level, whether or not you buy into the other interpretations.

Director Yu should know about competitive sports; unless her Wikipedia page has been hacked recently, it appears that she was a NCAA All American in fencing and a member of the US national team. Combined with her Yale education, Jessica Yu's persona looks less like the misdirected protagonist of Ping Pong Playa, Chris Wang (aka C-Dub), and more like his do-right brother. Chris is portrayed in the first half of Ping Pong Playa as having completely opted out of the ideal Asian-American path his parents envisioned. His brother is a doctor and ping pong star, but Chris despairs not over losing his lame job at the mall in the first ten minutes of Ping Pong Playa, since this gives him more time to sleep late, play videogames, and dream of entrepreneurial schemes he'll never act on.

Into the seemingly calm, self-satisfied life of C-Dub, some rain must fall. Without spoilers, we'll just say that his path from apathetic and delusional to engaged and grounded is what makes Ping Pong Playa more than just a one-note narrative. We'd say it was a little slice of Karate Kid, but that doesn't do either side justice. C-Dub definitely has his coming of age moment. The difference is that instead of accomplishing his transformation through immersion in something new, Chris Wang is given a chance to retrace his steps to a time when his sense of himself went off the rails, and to take another shot. It isn't a crazy notion to imagine that Jessica Yu's treatment of simple subject matter would be multi-faceted and highly nuanced. With her films Protagonist and In the Realms of the Unreal, she managed to illuminate marginal people without falling into easy stereotypes or superficial judgment. Her Academy Award for Breathing Lessons shows that she is, as C-Dub would say, "a straight-up playa."

The story-behind-the-story on Ping Pong Playa is told in some of the film's extras, and you can find much more info on the official Web site. Turns out that Jimmy Tsai, who plays Chris "C-Dub" Wang in Ping Pong Playa, originally created the character for a series of sportswear commercials. The Venom Sportswear brand is really just about Jimmy Tsai, so Yu's decision to wrap the film's story around C-Dub meant that Tsai had to move from his previously marginal role in a film production company to stand in front of the camera. Leave it to Jessica Yu to "discover" her leading man... Tsai's skills as an outsider actor, writer, director, and producer fit nicely into an otherwise skilled cast, all under direction from Jessica Yu. The exceptional talent behind Ping Pong Playa is what makes it so enjoyable, more than one expects after hearing the title or seeing the box art. Digging deep is a Yu specialty, and her skills appear immune even to being dunked in the most banal subject matter. We can't wait to see what she comes up with next!