SHALL WE DANCE? (Miramax) Starring: Koji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka, Eriko Watanabe. Screenplay: Masayuki Suo. Producers: Shoji Masui, Yasuyoshi Tokuma. Director: Masayuki Suo. MPAA Rating: PG (mild adult content) Running Time: 115 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
As feel-good formulaic as it may be in its own way, SHALL WE DANCE? also demonstrates a kind of charming restraint you don't often find in American films. This Japanese import tells the story of a middle-aged accountant named Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) whose mundane life is shaken up one night when he spots beautiful Mai Kishikawa (Tamiyo Kusakari) in the window of a dance school. Intrigued by her melancholy demeanor (and slightly infatuated with her), Sugiyama signs up for weekly classes at the school -- and, much to his amazement, ends up as attracted to dancing itself as to his young sensei. Meanwhile, Sugiyama's wife (Hideko Hara) becomes suspicious of his late Wednesday nights, and sets a private detective on her husband's trail.
In a Hollywood film, you can bet that sub-plot would be turned into a stream of slapstick comedy and crazy misunderstandings. In SHALL WE DANCE?, writer/director Masayuki Suo dispenses with it in a matter of minutes, using it to set up later character interactions rather than letting it overwhelm the story with pratfalls. Neither does he make the climactic moment of victory a competition between the hero and some mean-spirited token rival. Suo gives his comedy the graceful movements of his subject matter, allowing the humor to flow from the characters rather than forcing it upon them.
An opening prologue in SHALL WE DANCE? goes to some effort to place the film in a sociological perspective, explaining how contrary ballroom dancing is to the Japanese sense of propriety. It's a forced message in a story which doesn't need such a culture-specific angle. The dance school in SHALL WE DANCE? plays the role of a singles' mixer, with everyone vaguely embarrassed to be there yet taking the opportunity to try on new personalities. Most amusing among these new personalities is the one adopted by Sugiyama's co-worker Mr. Aoki (Naoto Takenaka), a balding systems analyst who becomes a fiery Latin lover when he dons a frizzy wig and begins to rumba. Sugiyama's awakening is less overt, but Koji Yakusho does a wonderful job showing a transformation of small steps. It's a delicate performance with a huge heart.
SHALL WE DANCE? is a fairly lightweight experience, which makes its final half hour rather a long sit. Suo crams a lot of exposition into very little time, including an unnecessarily detailed back-story for Mai, resulting in a sluggish march towards the resolution. It is here that SHALL WE DANCE? feels most Hollywood-conventional, attempting to blind-side the audience with a truckload of emotional catharsis. Suo might have been better advised to conclude with the small gem of a scene in which Sugiyama and his wife take their first tentative dance steps together. That's the real joy of dance SHALL WE DANCE? conveys: its ability to create an intoxicating mood of romance which can soften the stiffest shirt.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 dance fevers: 7.
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