PING PONG PLAYA in theaters Friday, Sept 5!!!

TAKEN FROM JIMMY TSAI'S BLOG HEREEVERYBODY!!! CHECK IT: the new comedy from Oscar winner Jessica Yu - PING PONG PLAYA  opens September 5th in SAN FRANCISCO, SAN  JOSE, BERKELEY, LOS ANGELES, GLENDALE, ALHAMBRA, IRVINE and NEW YORK.  On September 12, the film opens in SEATTLE and HOUSTON!  Please spread the word and send email blasts!It's an exciting time--but here's where we need you. We'll let ...Read more

About the Film

Christopher "C-dub" Wang is a suburban guy who sports an urban swagger, waxes political on all things Asian American, and clings to pipe dreams of a career as a pro basketball player. Blaming genetics for his failure to make the NBA, C-dub lives at home, works a dead-end job, and squirms in the shadow of his older brother, Michael, a doctor and ping pong champion.

With a family-run store devoted to all things ping pong and a mom who teaches it at the local Chinese Community Center, the Wangs’ entire world revolves around the ...Read more

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I entered filmmaking through the world of documentaries. My films have dealt with disability, outsider art, and former extremists renouncing their violent pasts. The logical choice for a first narrative feature might have been – oh, I don’t know, maybe an intimate drama about family dysfunction or a biopic about an obscure revolutionary poet. Instead we have here a comedy about ping pong. Consistency be damned. Making a film like this was a new adventure for me, and as a director it was one of the most pleasurable.

As a fifth-gen...Read more

PRODUCTION

The origins for the original idea for PING PONG PLAYA essentially came from three different sources: 1) the character, Christopher “C-dub” Wang, as conceived by Jimmy Tsai in a series of web commercials; 2) the idea of a ping pong comedy by producer Joan Huang; and 3) director Jessica Yu’s idea to merge the two together. From this kernel of a concept, development on the script began in late 2005 with Jessica and Jimmy writing together.

Approximately one year later and with the addition of producer Anne Clements, PING PONG PLAYA began round...Read more

ABOUT THE CAST

JIMMY TSAI (CHRISTOPHER “C-DUB” WANG)

Though technically a production accountant, Jimmy Tsai has been creating projects since his early teens, when the order of the day included everything from crime movie spoofs to commercials for the high school swim team. Jimmy’s latest filmmaking efforts include writing/directing another chapter in the THE VENOM SPORTSWEAR AD CAMPAIGN, a multi-media commentary on the state of children’s sports endorsement deals, as well as producing THE KILL...Read more

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

JESSICA YU (Writer/Director)

Jessica Yu is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for BREATHING LESSONS: THE LIFE AND WORK OF MARK O’BRIEN, an intimate portrait of the writer who lived for four decades paralyzed by polio and confined to an iron lung. She also won an Emmy and a Cable Ace Award for Best Documentary Director.

Yu’s current documentary, PROTAGONIST, looks at extremism through the lives of a spectrum of individuals. Funded by the Carr Foundation, it premiered...Read more