Some see the glass as nine-tenths empty; I see it as one-tenth full. So I will begin with some nice things concerning the Ping-Pong comedy "Balls of Fury." The nicest thing is the Asian American actress known as Maggie Q, who has in two earlier American films -- "Mission Impossible III" and "Live Free or Die Hard" -- been little more than incidental eye candy. In "Balls of Fury" she's actually entrusted with a part, and she turns out to be spunky, sarcastic, graceful, athletic and entirely likable. Every time she's on-screen, it sparkles; when she leaves, it droops unless . . .

Nice thing No. 2 appears, and that would be the great Christopher Walken, slumming as an international gangster named Feng with a Ping-Pong obsession so intense that he convenes a world championship death match. He carries the picture along with . . .

Nice thing No. 3, the comedian George Lopez as an FBI agent responsible for infiltrating a crime ring behind the Ping-Pong-to-the-death tourney. What a great straight man, and how nice if he were teamed with a great quipster or someone who knew how to use his calm stylings.

Alas, that ends the very short list of what works. As for what doesn't, try this: the rest of the movie.

"Balls of Fury" has an interesting conceit never quite delivered upon. It takes the standard kung-fu action plot and re-construes it with Ping-Pong -- "table tennis," more formally -- as the zone of conflict. It has all the hallmarks of late '70s kung-fu action, with outlandish villains and garish costumes and colors and clearly over-exaggerated action sequences. It is meant, I suppose, as some kind of parody, but it's nowhere near clever enough.

-- Stephen Hunter (Aug. 29, 2007)

Contains crude and sex-related humor and profanity.