THE STORY – Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor. She must face what comes next as sparks fly.
THE CAST – Rinko Kikuchi, Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, YOU, Yoh Yoshida, & Damián Alcázar
THE TEAM – Josef Kubota Wladyka (Director/Writer) & Nicholas Huynh (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 122 Minutes
There’s nothing better in a movie than a dance scene. Whether vibrant and exciting or slow and sensuous, it’s one of the best ways to show off a film’s craft elements, like its cinematography, editing, and costumes, while using physical action to propel the story. Unsurprisingly, such sequences are the best parts of “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!,” the new film from director Josef Kubota Wladyka. They’re such high points that the rest of the film struggles to live up to that exuberance. Wladyka’s fantastical direction and Rinko Kikuchi’s excellent lead performance work hard to make up for the frustrating, albeit occasionally funny, screenplay.
Our titular booty shaker is Haru (Kikuchi), a woman living in Tokyo with her husband, Luis (Alejandro Edda). The pair loves to perform together in ballroom dancing competitions, with their strong marital bond on display for all to see on the dance floor. But during one competition, Luis suddenly drops dead mid-dance. Haru is devastated, and she isn’t even given the closure of a traditional Japanese funeral process, as Luis’s family insists on taking his body to be buried in his native Mexico. After nine months of solitary mourning, Haru is coaxed out of isolation by her friends, who insist she needs to begin dancing again for her health and sanity. Haru is unconvinced until she meets the handsome dance instructor Fedir (Alberto Guerra). Immediately feeling a need to gain his approval, Haru finds herself dancing again and being drawn closer and closer to Fedir, both on the dance floor and off.
Kikuchi is an actress who draws attention to any film with her name on it. An Oscar nominee for “Babel,” she has a sporadic filmography, occasionally popping up in an impressive turn, such as her heartbreaking performance in “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” over a decade ago. Here, she shows a similarly strong command as the film’s lead, which benefits the movie, since she’s at the center of nearly every frame. Her character’s journey requires her to perform some odd, frustrating actions, but Kikuchi invests these moments with a strange blend of quirkiness and confidence that makes them easier to watch. After facing a devastating, sudden loss, she simply has nothing to lose and acts as such. But this doesn’t mean that she’s devoid of emotion. Her character’s obvious grief is played with full sincerity, even coming through as earnest alongside the unusual visual details that Wladyka deploys in scenes of her in deepest mourning.
Although Kikuchi elevates the film with her sheer talent, the screenplay forces her character into exasperating circumstances. After Haru meets Fedir, she begins setting up a false history for herself, and few things are harder to watch than a plot revolving around a lie, knowing that the truth will inevitably, painfully come out and cause conflict. Sure, there are funny moments related to Haru’s dishonesty, but it’s tough to watch, with the proverbial ticking time bomb of the oncoming reveal overpowering all else.
But wow, those dance sequences! Several moments clearly take place in Haru’s head, and here, Wladyka deploys his greatest directorial flourishes. One sequence sees a fight unexpectedly turn into an imagined ensemble musical number set to “Be My Baby” sung in both English and Spanish. This and several other scenes that set aside dialogue to focus on rhythmic movement stand out, giving the film a jolt of energy every time. Wladyka is unafraid to break logical filmmaking rules here, bending the laws of physics to accentuate characters’ movements and employing unrealistic lighting to achieve a gloriously theatrical effect.
“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” feels imbalanced, like a pas de deux between partners of differing skill. Rinko Kikuchi’s talent and the moments where dialogue is discarded in favor of dance give the film a necessary compelling energy that, unfortunately, isn’t to be found in the screenplay. It makes for an impressive showing, but this film won’t move on to the next round of competition.
