Shall We Dance (Japanese)

Watched this in school about 4 years ago, but wasn’t able to watch the end of it due to the constraints of classroom time.

Thought that watching it again wouldn’t be as funny the second time, but it was actually still very funny! That Aoki-san is really very good, and pretty much all the characters who are from the dance academy are utterly charming. The detective is also quite great, I like how compassionate he is and how he ended up getting himself into all this fun stuff. Very good of him.

Also, recognized that the gossiped “rival love interest” (well, for about 10 minutes, anyway) was played by the admittedly good-looking Motoki Masahiro from Departures/Okuribito!!! Felt very nice to recognize him like that, but was somewhat disconcerted by the possibly tiny size of the Japanese industry. I’ve only watched about 3 non-animated Japanese films in my life, and he was in 2 of them?! Terribly small industry, or just a coincidence. I hope it’s the latter. Anyhow, very delightful, fun, cute, humourous, and warm film about the awkwardness of the presence of dance in Japan. Probably in my Top 30, meaning that I like it very much, but won’t remember it well enough to call it my absolute favourite. 88/100