Starring: Naoto Takenaka, Juri Ueno, Yuta Hiraoka
Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Category: I (Japanese)
From the director of the smash hit Waterboys comes this feel-good comedy about a band of bad Japanese schoolgirls who make good when they learn to play a little jazz. There's nothing new in the formula, there's nothing much deep or meaningful in the film's method - but it comes overflowing with charm. And that takes the film a long way.
Forced to spend their summer indoors making up on maths, Tomoko (Juri Ueno) and her chums gaze longingly out the window and at the other students out there having fun. But when their plan to lend a helping hand goes wrong - they skip class to take lunches to the school brass band and inadvertently poison them all - they're made to pick up instruments as a form of punishment.
No prizes for guessing that the discipline they glean from a few music classes crosses over into their personal lives and the girls eventually warm to the task. When the brass band recovers, the girls are loath to return to normal classes, so they fight against the odds to get a jazz combo up and swinging.
