SHALL WE DANCE?
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
Shohei, (Koji Yakusyo) is a devoted 41-year-old husband to Masako (Hideko Hara) and father to a sweet teen aged daughter. Masako has learned to depend on her husband showing up from work at the same time every night. In fact, she thinks, he seems to be in a rut and could probably use a little change Her daughter cautions her that she should be happy that her father is such an uncomplicated man who does not cause any kind of anxiety in this middle class family.
Shohei, who is an up and coming office employee, takes the same train home every night but tonight, as he gazes out the trains open doors at a station, he happens to look up at a building where a pretty woman is gazing out a window. It is a dance studio where ballroom dancing is taught. And every night now, he makes a point of looking up and seeing her until one fateful night he suddenly dashes out the train's open door and crosses to the building..
Ballroom dancing had had a somewhat bad aura to it because not so long ago it was a place where men went for more than dancing. While that is no longer true, no one exactly advertises the fact he is attending a ballroom studio to learn to dance. After looking to right and left to make sure no one he knows has seen him, Shohei enters the building and goes up to the fourth floor, knocks on the door and finds himself in the dance hall.
Shohei asks to be taught by Mai (Tamiyo Kusakari), the woman of the window but when he learns that the price of a private lesson is prohibitive, he opts for being taught as part of a group of three, giving rise to film's funniest moments. When he has overcome his original stiff bearing when learning to dance, he decides he must dance with Mai. He even goes so far, after a bit, to ask her to join him for dinner but she quickly puts him in his place; if he is taking these classes just to be able to date her, she tells him, forget it. It will never happen.
There are many humorous moments in the film and quite enjoyable to watch as are the dancers as they get better and better. Where the movie turns a bit cold is toward the predictable end: The wife begins to wonder why Shohei is no longer on time . . . on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, and what is that new perfume she smells on his shirts when she is about to do his laundry? And the more the film progresses from that point, the more obvious it becomes what the ending will be.. Too bad the film's last quarter was unable to be as rich as the first three quarters.. Nevertheless, It has a charm and is a delight to watch.
Others in the cast include Naoto Takenaka, Eriko Watanabe, Yu Tokui, Hiromasa Taguchi and Reiko Kusamura.
Written and directed by Masayuki Suo.
(In Japanese with English subtitles.)
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Ben Hoffman
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