Balls of Fury [WS]

Director: Robert Ben Garant Robert Ben Garant

Overview

A disgraced former ping pong champion is drawn back into the world of high-stakes table tennis to carry out a top-secret mission in the feature directorial debut of Reno 911! writer/director Ben Garant. Far removed from the rigidly regulated world of professional sports, clandestine ping pong tournaments offer thrilling competition where only the strong survive. There was a time when the mere mention of the name Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) was enough to make even those most hardened ping pong player cower in fear, but these days Randy has fallen out of favor with ping-pong fans. The former champ soon receives a much-needed shot at redemption, however, when he is recruited by a determined FBI agent named Rodriguez (George Lopez) to win a coveted spot in the upcoming underground table tennis tournament and ferret out the nefarious Feng (Christopher Walken), whose thriving criminal empire has transformed him into a true menace to society.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/18/2007
UPC:	0025193184924
Original Release:	2007
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVS LLC
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:31:00
Sales rank:	28,844

Special Features

Deleted scenes; Alternate ending; Balls Out: The Making of Balls of Fury; Under the Balls: The Lie of a Ball Wrangler

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dan Fogler	Randy Daytona
Christopher Walken	Feng
George Lopez	Agent Ernie Rodriguez,Wedge McDonald
Maggie Q	Maggie Wong
James Hong	Master Wong
Terry Crews	Freddy
Robert Patrick	Sgt. Pete Daytona
Diedrich Bader	Gary
Aisha Tyler	Mahogany
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa	Mysterious Asian Man
Brett DelBuono	Young Randy--12 Years Old
Jason Scott Lee	Siu-Foo
Toby Huss	Groundskeeper
David Holmes	TV Producer,TV Producer
Heather DeLoach	Teenage Fan
David Koechner	Rick the Birdmaster
Kerri Kenney	Showgirl
Floyd Van Buskirk	Old Man
Jenny Robertson	Den Mother
Patton Oswalt	Hammer
Jim Lampley	Sportscaster
Na Shi La	The Dragon
Mather Zickel	Branch Director
Jim Rash	Techie
David Proval	Mob Boss
Philippe Durand	Referee
Masi Oka	Jeff--Bathroom Attendant
Brandon Molale	Male Courtesan No. 1
Guy Stevenson	Male Courtesan No. 2
Steve Little	Crazed East German Fan
Cathy Sim	North Korean Athlete
Greg Joung Paik	North Korean General
Eugene Choy	Gardener
Matt Sigloch	Commanding Officer
Marisa Tayui	Geisha
Mark Hyland	Umberto Dinovi
Irina Voronina	Coach Schmidt
Darryl Chan	Feng's Bodyguard
Thomas Lennon	Karl Wolfschtagg
La Shi	The Dragon
Cathy Shim	North Korean Attache
Randy Edelman	Composer

Technical Credits

Robert Ben Garant

Thomas Lennon

Robert Ben Garant	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Thomas Lennon	Screenwriter,Producer
Roger Birnbaum	Producer
Gary Barber	Producer
Jonathan Glickman	Producer
Josh Hakian	Special Effects
David Waine	Special Effects
Dennis Berardi	Special Effects
Julie Ashton	Casting
Troy Brown	Stunts
Derek Evans	Executive Producer
Michael Gordon	Executive Producer
Ron Schmidt	Executive Producer
Julie Ashton-Barson	Casting
Steven Ho	Stunts
Willie Leong	Stunts
Mike Runyard	Stunts
Brian Imada	Stunts,Stunts
Jonathan Eusebio	Stunts
Rex Reddick	Stunts
Ryan Watson	Stunts
J.J. Dashnaw	Stunts
Kiralee Hayashi	Stunts
Ming Qiu	Stunts
Sam Looc	Stunts
John Koyama	Stunts
Tim Rigby	Stunts
Scott Workman	Stunts
Roel Failma	Stunts
Jonathan Valera	Stunts
Dan Bell	Stunts
Lloyd M. Moriarty	Key Grip
Al Goto	Stunts
Jeff Podgurski	Stunts
Steve Upton	Stunts
Robert Alonzo	Stunts
Marcus Young	Stunts
Xuyen T. Valdivia	Stunts
Heidi Moneymaker	Stunts
Ilram Choi	Stunts
Freddie Farnsworth	Stunts
Steve Hart	Stunts
Jeremy Dunn	Stunts
Daniel Hernandez	Stunts
Don Selsor	Key Grip
Anita Hart	Stunts
Monty Simons	Stunts
David Leitch	Stunts
Tadahiro Nakamura	Stunts
Shawn Kautz	Stunts
Don Tai	Stunts
Eddie Fernandez	Stunts
Tim Chau	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Balls of Fury was the recipient of much critical fury when it first hit theaters. Maybe that's because the title sounded like a ripoff of Blades of Glory, which came out earlier that year, or because Fury's Dan Fogler seemed like a transparent attempt at finding "a poor man's Jack Black." Whatever the reason, it was as though all the pent-up frustration about two-bit comedies and their enslavement to formula was unleashed on this one little ping-pong movie. Which contradicts one very central and very original thing about Balls of Fury -- it might just be the first ever mainstream comedy about ping-pong. And it's certainly the first film since Forrest Gump to digitally conjure such realistic feats of paddle prowess, which Fury does repeatedly, with contagious joy. That's a good way to describe the entire film -- its surprising warmth and sweetness can't help but feel contagious, once viewers look past their preconceived biases. Fogler is, actually, his own comic personality -- he bears a physical resemblance to Black, but his perfectly named Randy Daytona is Fogler's own Def Leppard-loving goofball creation. While Daytona is in fact a depressed schlub working the dingiest casinos in Reno, he's also a genuine ping-pong savant. A lesser script might have made him a hapless wannabe, but writer-director Ben Garant and writer Thomas Lennon respect Daytona's genius, finding the absurd in his situation, rather than requiring him to play the clown -- quite different from how they would have written his character on Reno 911! They've also dreamed up a funny array of ping-pong lifer nut jobs, whose tournament underworld is comic gold, especially as overseen by Christopher Walken in a kimono and a Brooklyn accent. The title tells you this movie has balls, but it can't prepare you for its unexpected heart.