In the vein of THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY, Chinese director Hao Ning captures a similar theme in MONGOLIAN PING PONG, but instead of a coke bottle this time it's a ping pong ball.
Seven-year-old Bilike lives on the Great Mongolian Steppe in a landscape of vast plains ruled by nomads-of-ol'. He survives with his family and friends in a fairly mundane cycle of life until one day he discovers a strange, white ball floating down a nearby river. He quickly grasps it and sets himself on an adventure. No one has ever seen anything like this ball. His bewitching grandmother tells him it's a good-luck item from the gods. Others think it might be a magical pearl. Bilike and his friends are enchanted and try to figure it out on their own. Traveling to wise monks, policeman, and eventually to Beijing, Bilike eventually finds out the truth about this rather ordinary object as he is forced to grow up.
Although similar in plotting to The Gods Must Be Crazy, Mongolian Ping Pong has better usage of camera, lighting and landscape. The panoramic vistas of the Mongolian Steppe are, without a doubt, absolutely magnificent. The location plays perhaps a more central character than the characters themselves. Which caused a few problems. Hao Ning (director) lets the camera linger on these beautiful shots too often and for too long, making the pacing agonizingly slow (although beautiful, one can only watch so much of this before it gets a bit tiring). Employing no-name actors is fairly common in films such as this, but it's very evident that none of these people (kids and adults alike) have very little if any acting experience, making many character sequences fall flat or wooden.
The initial quality of the filming, too, leant itself to a slightly documentary-style feel, which isn't horrible but something that detracts a little.
But even with these flaws, the story is quaint enough and infused with childlike wonder that most viewers probably won't mind. Be forewarned, though, as mentioned earlier, it is a sloooow film but shot with art-like dedication when looking at it overall.
