Surviving, as we barely manage to do, in the culvert ridden, monster infested nether regions of League 3 in the Halifax League, we already, in our first season, have had to face up to dramatic and enforced changes in our perception of table tennis (or ping pong) as a major obsession of the world’s leaders, as a daily engine of our real-life activities and as an emotional roller-coaster dictating our every mood and relationship.

No, dummy! It’s a game (or sport , if you insist) played with two small bits of rubber-covered wood and a tiny white ball designed to be hit at 100mph at your opponent on the other side of a lightweight dining table!

Well, er……yes, perhaps: or possibly neither. Wherever we, as individuals, choose to place ourselves between these two absurd extremes, this Japanese film, PING PONG, covers ALL the ground on this subject. Thoughts of murder, suicide and most other horrors known to man are an integral part of this dramatic examination of Japanese responses to the opportunity to play with their balls – and that’s just the boys!

As a piece of drama, it’s like watching an experimental production of Hamlet, set on another planet where Macbeth is Hamlet’s brother, King Lear his grandfather and Richard III his uncle. Apart from one wise old female crone, wheezing away like a Japanese pre-Miss Marple Geraldine McEwan, the female participants were generally relegated to simpering and giggling non-participants (i.e. fans) with little or no influence on the ugly, loud and angry struggles of the main protagonists. In Shakespearean terms, it was a tragedy because of its obsession with its own bodily functions or a comedy because this obsession made one laugh. The Japanese language and its delivery by actors undoubtedly made it difficult for those of us from other cultures to ‘go with the flow’ and actually follow or detect an actual coherent storyline. After a fish-eye like close-up of one of the main characters delivering what sounded like the ultimate threat, the subtitle then flashed up on the screen “what IS all this blocking bollocks anyway?” Hysterical laughter inevitably ensued.

However, to watch such a film gives us a unique glimpse into a culture, an attitude and an interpretation of life and sporting activity that would otherwise remain unknown. As a commentary on the impact of table tennis on the home and school lives of a community of Japanese teenagers and their mentors it was almost certainly accurate and meaningful. For those of us languishing in the basement of Halifax League 3, it was eye-opening and thought provoking in a detached kind of way, but had to be enjoyed as pure entertainment rather than used as an aide-memoire on alternate Monday evenings.

DG