An experimental sports film made partly during the Scandinavian Open Championships in Halmstad in 1970, partly during the Chinese players' exhibition tour in Denmark immediately after the SOC. First of all, it is a film about their style, about the artistic culmination that is ping-pong at its best, it records China's comeback into the international sports world.
Direction
Leth finds spiritual geometry in celluloid and ping-pong.
Editing
Cuts that make sports feel like avant-garde dance.
Director
Jørgen Leth
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This captures the aftermath of 1971's 'Ping-Pong Diplomacy' — the US-China matches that preceded Nixon's visit.
Leth, who later directed 'The Five Obstructions,' treats athletic movement with the same formal rigor he applied to experimental fiction.
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