VIDEO Shall We Dance Japanese director Masayuki Suo followed up the success of Sumo Do Sumo Don't with this delightful romantic comedy.
While Sumo concentrates on the humorous aspects of wimps learning to wrestle, Shall We Dance explores the comedic potential of a group of people who, for various reasons, decide to take up ballroom dancing.
This is a very different film from Strictly Ballroom, with its themes of triumph and excellence easily obtained a la Hollywood. Shall We Dance is about the trials and tribulations involved in becoming merely passable at ballroom dancing.
As with Sumo this is a tale of average people striving hard to find self-fulfillment. The story centres on Soyhei Sugiyama, a 'salaryman' who has sold his soul to his company so he can take on a mortgage. He has a daughter, and a kind wife. What he does not have is a life. He commutes, works, pays the money into the bank for the mortgage. He gets home dead tired after a gruelling journey home on packed commuter trains.
Desperately in search of excitement and stimulation, he one night spots a beautiful woman (Tamiyo Kusakari) looking wistfully out of a window with 'Ballroom Dancing Classes' written on it.
On a whim, he goes to the dance school, with no interest in dancing and every intention of trying to seduce the woman, Mai.
