Swing Girls

When a high school brass band (for the school's baseball team), gets food poisoning, the only healthy member of the band (he wasn't able to eat the spoiled food that day) decides to call some indolent girls from the school (who inadvertently caused the food poisoning) to replace the band. Initially, of course, they are a disaster. But just when they start to get better, the original band returns. What's to do, then? What about forming a jazz-style band? Following the structure of his previous film, Water Boys (inept students finally prevail against all odds), Yaguchi made probably his best film so far. It's hilarious, full of great gags. All the actors are good, but the geeky girl named Sekiguchi steal the movie in my opinion.

From the beginning you realize that this is not a silly teen movie about a group of girls who act initially as substitutes for the school brass band. This movie actually has so much heart, its great to watch. Its full of good humor and all the girls of the title are engaging. Part of the time I was reminded of "Hula Girls", which has a premise that is a bit similar, but this is a better film. Its also better than the also similar "Linda Linda Linda". The girls learn jazz, going through the usual learning curves. The success or failure of this film hinges upon whether you like the characters, and I do. They are not caricatures, not over the top, just girls who want to play jazz. Another thing I liked a lot was that the film doesn't have any soppy coming of age romance subplots, which would retract from the fun of this. No need to go into what happens, its fairly obvious, but this obvious is fun to watch. Highly recommended.

what a fun! I was totally surprised by this film; at first i had the prejudice that the whole thing could turn out like a hysterical teenage comedy but it didn't, luckily.

The light hearted feeling in this film was so comfortable. It is just like as someone already wrote in the comments. This film really does complement the, in movies or animes often seen, generalized or sometimes sexist image of Japanese school girls. The soundtrack, beside the jazz music, was also excellent, though it was the common "japanese-drama" background-music (accoustic guitar and stuff). The Jazz music covers solely standards and wasn't very artistically played but it was, combined with this movie, awesome! The acting was also very nice, however there were some awkward moments when the acting felt a little bit exaggerated. But that's fine with me, considering that many of the cast debuted with this film.

This could have been a reason to give this film a 8/10 but the funky finale made a 9/10 out of it. ;)

This is the best japanase comedy i ve ever watched! without a doubt u will fall in love with this Japanese school jazz band!

prepare to enjoy an extraordinary movie! you will laugh a lot!

it is important to highlight that even when you are gonna have fun, you will have the opportunity to learn at the same time about the social problems that the jap. public high school students have to face in modern japan. (family disintegration, school dropouts, the high consumption of brands - cartier, armani,etc- among jap. adolescents, mediocre professors, etc)

if we become extremely critical this movie will get 8/10 or 9/10 on the worst scenario. but because i enjoyed it so much and all of my friends loved it too, so we think this movie deserve 10/10!

Swing Girls (2004) was directed by Shinobu Yaguchi. Born in Kanagawa in 1967, Yaguchi other works include Adrenalin Live, A Secret Flower Garden and Water Boys. The latter has been his most successful movie to date, having been developed into a weekly television series. Water Boys shares many similarities with Swing Girls. First of all, the stage for each movie is high school and the main character in each is a boy (or girl) with no particular talent, skill or interests. He (she) discovers synchronized swimming (jazz music) and undergoes a transformation. Both movies are based on the theme of succeeding.

Set in present-day Japan, Swing Girls is the story of girls who meet and are deeply fascinated by jazz. The heroine is a very typical Japanese teenager. Her character is suggestive of the hidden problem of today children. She lacks any special interests or motivation and dislikes making any effort. But when she discovers jazz, she discovers something she can be absorbed in and begins to transform herself. At first, she is not able to even make a noise. But she and her friends practice and come to be able to play their instruments. They slowly come to be fond of jazz and take part in a music competition.

All the music was played by the actresses and actors themselves, which is perhaps the most outstanding aspect of Swing Girls. Their accents, on the other hand, sound to me like an imitation. But, as a whole, I like this movie.