Balls of Fury is a 2007 American sports comedy film directed by Robert Ben Garant, who also wrote the screenplay with Thomas Lennon, who also co-starred and produced with Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman.
The film stars Dan Fogler in his first lead role, with a supporting cast of George Lopez, Christopher Walken, Maggie Q, Terry Crews, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, James Hong and Jason Scott Lee.
Eleven-year-old Randy Daytona becomes anxious when he learns that his father Peter has bet on his performance in the 1988 Summer Olympics table tennis tournament finals.
Nineteen years later, Daytona meets FBI agent Ernie Rodriguez, who requests his assistance in arresting Feng for gunrunning.
Daytona handily beats his first opponent, Freddy "Fingers" Wilson, though he is unnerved to learn that the tournament is literally sudden death—the loser is killed by a poisoned dart delivered by Feng's majordomo, Mahogany.
After Daytona unsuccessfully attempts to escape, Feng invites him to join his side and reveals that he only finished half of Wong's training.
As of June 2020[update], the film holds a 21% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 131 reviews with an average score of 4.2/10.
The site's consensus reads: "Tasteless, yet harmless, Balls of Fury nevertheless fails to generate enough laughs despite its lowbrow intentions".
[3] Brian Lowry of Variety magazine wrote: "Relentlessly silly in spoofing martial-arts movie conventions, Balls of Fury has roughly enough laughs for a first-class trailer but wheezes, gasps and finally goes flat through much of its 90 minutes.
"[4] Film historian Leonard Maltin was even less kind, declaring the picture a BOMB (his lowest possible rating), while describing it as a "...One-joke comedy that's every bit as inane and stupid as its premise.
"[5] Roger Ebert was more favorable in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, giving it two-and-a-half out of four stars and recommending it as a modest comedy of "sheer absurdity".