Synopsis
A bored Japanese accountant sees a beautiful woman in the window of a ballroom dance studio. He secretly starts taking dancing lessons to be near her, and then over time discovers how much he loves ballroom dancing. His wife, meanwhile, has hired a private detective to find out why he has started coming home late smelling of perfume.
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Cast
- Koji YakushoShohei Sugiyama
- Tamiyo KusakariMai Kishikawa
- Naoto TakenakaTomio Aoki
- Eri WatanabeToyoko Takahashi
- Akira EmotoDetective Miwa
- Yuu TokuiTokichi Hattori
- Hiromasa TaguchiMasahiro Tanaka
- Reiko KusamuraTamako Tamura
- Hideko HaraMasako Sugiyama
- Hiroshi MiyasakaMacho
Recommendations
- 83
Entertainment Weekly
Even when the catharsis we yearn for arrives, it's tinged with restraint. But then, the true romance in Shall We Dance? is more than personal. It's the spectacle of a nation learning to dance with itself. - 80
Dallas Observer
The film successfully walks the thin line between slick commercialism and "serious" realism. It is sentimental, but it comes by its sentiment honestly, through well-observed performances by the leads and a keen insight into the quirks of the Japanese middle-class culture. - 80
Empire
Shohei's journey from unhappy worker bee - the early scenes are cleverly sketched to show his mundane routine without ever themselves being boring - to rejuvenated free spirit is credible, actually earning the film's final emotional wallop. Irresistible. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
Good in their individual scenes, Yakusho and Kusakari are magical together. They convey so much yearning -- not so much for each other as for that extra something to give real meaning to their lives. - 75
San Francisco Examiner
A charming and moving film about a slightly racy subculture in a highly rule-bound society. - 63
USA Today
Has its moments - but far too many of them. It runs two hours and seems to end five times. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
It addresses issues of stultifying routine and the small crises of middle-aged life, and deserves credit for not obscuring the simple story with a flurry of smoke and mirrors. - 50
L.A. Weekly
As sticky as "Strictly Ballroom," if far better behaved, Shall We Dance was written and directed by Masayuki Suo, a man who really knows his way around clichés both benign and tiresome.
