Ping Pong Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Ping Pong Blu-ray Movie Review

Peco Supreme?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 27, 2026

Marty Supreme seemed to make a lot of the world wake up and start paying attention to table tennis, but as my Marty Supreme Blu-ray review mentions in passing, there have been at least a few other films over the past few decades that have featured the sport. A little ironically then in that regard is the fact that whereas I cited a couple of previous ping pong related films in that review, calling them "live action cartoons", for reasons I frankly can't remember now I did not include Ping Pong (probably because it wasn't available on disc yet in either Region A or Region B), which in a very real way may lay claim to that "live action cartoon" imprimatur more "accurately" than the rest simply because it was in fact based on a popular manga.

Peco (Yōsuke Kubozuka) and the ironically named Smile (Arata Iura) have been BFFs forever, though they each have radically different personalities which have determined their approach to and how they play table tennis. The film is basically a pretty "tried and true" exploration of a friendship that faces adversity on several levels before the two have to face off against each other in a big tournament. Nothing too surprising happens in the narrative, though the stylized approach to everything may keep the viewer off kilter one way or the other. As odd as it may sound, the underlying foundational premise of this film reminded me in a way of the recent documentary Chris & Martina: The Final Set, in terms of two people who need to navigate being both friends and rivals.

Ping Pong Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ping Pong is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 88 Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (more or less, anyway, as there are very thin bars running vertically on either side of the image, as can be seen most clearly in the first screenshot accompanying this review). While the IMDb doesn't really provide much information, this site and a couple of others I unearthed online state that Ping Pong utilized a then trendy Sony HDW-F900, and the result here is unabashedly "video"-esque in appearance. That can't help but almost add a subliminal (or maybe even liminal) perception of a digital look, but that stylistic issue aside, detail levels are actually often impressive throughout, at least away from some of the more surreal VFX moments. Fine detail on actual practical sets and costumes tends to be excellent, though more so when a frequently peripatetic camera calms down for a minute or two. The palette is typically very nicely suffused, though some of the more whimsical vignettes, as the one seen in the first screenshot, can offer pushed contrast and other stylistic peculiarities.

Ping Pong Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ping Pong features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options in the original Japanese. The surround track noticeably opens up the tournament scenes in particular, where both whizzing panning effects following balls and the clamor of the audience can help engage the surround channels. The film has a number of fun J-Pop adjacent scoring choices which also help to provide immersion. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Though the Setup Menu only offers "[coded] with English subtitles" as options, the subtitles are in fact optional and can be toggled off.

Ping Pong Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Zack Davisson


• An Artist's Take (HD; 21:30) features Michael Arias discussing Taiyo Matsumoto and Ping Pong.


• A Different Class (HD; 13:43) is an informative video essay by Jasper Sharp.


• Trailer (HD; 1:35)

An insert booklet features an enjoyable essay by Jonathan Clements. The sleeve is reversible.

Ping Pong Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a bracing visual style on hand in Ping Pong which may help, at least in part, to offset some undeniably cliché ridden narrative meanderings and "character arcs". Performances are winning and the game sequences in particular almost manically enjoyable. Technical merits are generally solid with an understanding of technological context, and the supplements are informative. Recommended.