King of Ping Pong

2008

2h 0m

Comedy

Drama

List

60%

5 Reviews

Tomatometer

50%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Pudgy Swedish teenager Rille (Jerry Johansson) -- a complete outcast at his high school -- clings to his status as the undisputed champion of table tennis at a recreation center in his small town. Meanwhile, Rille's charming younger brother, Erik (Hampus Johansson), has all the popularity he can handle. When Rille discovers that Erik's true father is their mother's hapless boyfriend, Gunnar (Frederik Nilsson), the revelation threatens to destroy their already complicated relationship.

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Audience Member

Pretty good Swedish film (I was surprised it was that good) - well worth watching.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Details on spot, soundtrack, staging and very well thought shooting. With just right amount of edge and twist. Everyday life, communication breakdowns and adult problems portrayed like in best of Mike Leigh -films.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This is a Swedish work.Honored from Sundance and many place of other film festivals. The story sets in a cold snow town.We see fraud stuff.A fat boy in an orderless mind winter.Girl"friends" and a school impression that seem not to schooling.Grey Blue Green Pink and a very very quiet iced lake with the clear sharp ping pong pounds. I like this film indeed,I feel jealous that the fat boy have such "good" relationships.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

Audience Member

So, what if the Swedes made a version of "Napoleon Dynamite" only as a drama? Chubby kid Rille (Jerry Johansson) is in charge of the ping pong table for 4th graders at a community center. He lives with his hard-working, long suffering mother, and out-going and popular brother. Throughout the movie, you're waiting for him to snap, and although he sort of does, it perhaps says more about the nordic temperament that he doesn't (if this were a U.S. film, he'd probably blow up the school or something). He doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, not with kids his own age, not with girls, not even with his own family (his brother and rugged, scuba-diving father seem almost identical while he feels he's the odd man out). His mother brings home the town's laughingstock, a man nicknamed "Road Gunnar" (nicknamed thus because of a failed road construction he was planning- it's failure leading to his nervous breakdown), who, when Rille overhears a conversation between he and his mother, begins to suspect that Gunnar is his father. Meanwhile, the quiet, studious girl Rille has a crush on draws pictures with an innate focus on the male form, and his estranged father turns out to be more than a rogue, he seems to be a drunk as well. While there's alot crammed into this movie, it seems to move at a glacial-like pace, and it's tough to generate much excitement over what does happen when it happens. However, there does seem to be genuine emotion at stake, and the characters are portrayed in a realistic fashion. The King of Ping Pong is a mild enjoyment, nothing ground-breaking, but I don't think it's trying to be.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/26/23

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Audience Member

The cinematography is ace, so the film wins points on style. The screenplay could have been rewritten a couple more times. Difficult to get into.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

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Audience Member

To the dlicate childhood.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

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Jens Jonsson

Director

Jerry Johansson

Rille

Hampus Johansson

Erik

Ann-Sofie Nurmi

Mamman

Frederik Nilsson

Väg-Gunnar

Georgi Staykov

Pappan

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Justin Lowe

Hollywood Reporter

suitably understated

Mar 10, 2008

Full Review

Dennis Harvey

Variety

Part deadpan nerd comedy in the Napoleon Dynamite mode, part miserablist childhood saga a la My Life as a Dog, this isn't quite funny or poignant enough to pull off either.

Jan 28, 2008

Full Review

Amber Wilkinson

Eye for Film

What begins as an amusingly dysfunctional take on the coming-of-age drama... founders when the tone switches to something much darker.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 2, 2009

Full Review

Luke Y. Thompson

OC Weekly

If this kid were your classmate in school, you'd avoid him. Doing likewise with the movie won't hurt.

Apr 28, 2008

Full Review

Boyd van Hoeij

european-films.net

A pleasant if not entirely successful addition to the Scandinavian tragicomedy genre.

Jan 28, 2008

Full Review

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Synopsis

Pudgy Swedish teenager Rille (Jerry Johansson) -- a complete outcast at his high school -- clings to his status as the undisputed champion of table tennis at a recreation center in his small town. Meanwhile, Rille's charming younger brother, Erik (Hampus Johansson), has all the popularity he can handle. When Rille discovers that Erik's true father is their mother's hapless boyfriend, Gunnar (Frederik Nilsson), the revelation threatens to destroy their already complicated relationship.

Director: Jens Jonsson
Producer: Per-Erik Svensson, Kim Magnusson, Gunnar Carlsson, Anna Croneman
Production Co: BOB Film Sweden AB
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: Swedish
Runtime: 2h 0m