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One evening Shohei sees, as if for the first time, a nearby dancing school. What catches his eye is the figure of Mai Kishikawa (Tamiyo Kusakari), staring mournfully from a curtained window. Intrigued and attracted by the mysterious Mai, Shohei decides to take a closer look; in other words, he must overcome his embarrassment and sign up for lessons. Unfortunately he gets placed in the beginners class, stuck with Masahiro Tanaka (Hiromasa Taguchi) and Tokichi Hattori (Yu Tokui). They're dreadful enough to be taught by the school's director Tamako Tamura (Reiko Kusamura), meaning that Mai can only be appraised from afar.
The closed, sequinned world of ballroom dancing has been dragged kicking and screaming into the spotlight before, most notably in Strictly Ballroom. However, where Baz Luhrmann's interpretation was a showy and extrovert soap opera, Masayuki Suo embarks on a quite different tack. Taking credit for both writing and directing Shall We Dansu?, Suo focuses on the internal in preference to the external. Rather than ride the dance steps as an end in themselves, Suo wields them as a mirror, reflections from the dancers' emotional state. This, in broad strokes, certainly suits the Japanese persona, where displays of affection are to be avoided at all cost; curiously this resonates with the stereotypical reserved British character, forging a bond between the two cultures.
In transposing the social framework of one country (England) onto another (Japan), Suo draws from the bottomless well of comic misunderstanding. His Shohei is quite unprepared for the subtle infiltration that occurs; where once he slumped bonelessly on the journey home, now his body sways unconsciously to Latin rhythms. On the floor he warms up to the close physical contact, exuberant exercise and enthusiasm of his fellow learners. The problem for Shohei is one of translation, of how to bring the joy back home. The stigma attached to such an enterprise is just too great to allow a public admission; this is why Tomio Aoki (Naoto Takenaka) sports a wig. By day a boring, dull systems analyst, by night Aoki becomes a flamboyant and daring master of passion. Thus Masako and Chikage can't quite work out why Shohei's depression has lifted, but they think they like it.
Yakusho's performance as Shohei is delightfully subtle, in that he's forced to express himself kinetically rather than verbally. The dialogue within Shall We Dansu? is no more than average, but Toshio Watari's choreography is superb. At first Shohei is clumsy, wooden and afraid to commit, while later he gains an ease and fluidity born of dedicated practice. Yakusho's acting is rather reminiscent of Jacques Tati and, to his credit, similarly amusing. The other dance school regulars entertain, though Takenaka and Kusakari stand out in the pathos that they drape over the story. Shall We Dansu? is fundamentally a fable on being true to yourself, with this kernel refracted through the three key characters. It's a shame that Suo mishandles the home-life perturbation angle, leaving Hara nothing to do but complain about how she's lost her husband to the dancefloor. The problem is that Masako's just not a part of the dance scene.
All in all Shall We Dansu? is a spirited but slight comedy, a standard story stimulated by Naoki Kayano's lively photography. Suo weaves together flashes of hilarity and joyous dance steps with a sure touch, though he's less successful at dealing with emotions nearer the far end of the spectrum. The bulk of the characters are simply too shallow to mandate a deep analysis, with Shohei registering as the main exception. His struggle against the slide of life has impact for all who've contemplated their own existence; his solution might not suit all, but at least Shohei makes an effort. The big question is whether you should be out there exploring a new future rather than in here absorbing yet another movie!
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