Vibrant, entertaining Japanese teen drama, set in the ultra-competitive world of high-school table-tennis tournaments. The brash Peco (Yosuke Kubozuka) and the reserved Smile (Arata) are best friends from childhood, pitting their talents against such formidable adversaries as the relentless Dragon (Shidou Nakamura). The players see themselves as comic-book superheroes and director Fumihiko Sori shoots their one-on-one contests with dynamic Matrix-style flourishes. Here, table tennis isn't just a metaphor for the lives of these adolescents - - it is their lives.
