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.

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!

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.

From the director of Waterboys comes a new drama-comedy Swing Girls, and I'm a happy camper. I mean, what can go wrong with combining Japanese Schoolgirls (drool?) and Jazz? Absolutely nothing! The premise and narrative is formulaic for this kind of "feel good carpe diem" shows - a bunch of misfits are thrown together by circumstance, to escape the dread of make up Math lessons during the holidays, they enroll (not voluntarily at first) to form a Big Band, face the great uphill task of getting funds for instruments, rehearsing and getting their act together, before ending it all with a cheery big bang.

But as always, it's the delivery that matters. And this show delivers at all fronts. From the many comedic and zany moments, to preaching "never give ups", the story is breezy and the pacing comfortable. The main leads are rock solid good lookers, while the supporting casts consists of quirky characters, like the rocker chicks (huh? in a jazz band?! watch to find out!), gangster-ish mechanic wimps, and a teacher-maestro wannabe, brings much laughter even though at times their characters might seem one dimensional.

What works is definitely the chemistry amongst the cast. It seems, from the out takes, that they had tremendous fun in making this film, and it shows in the end product.

One gripe you may have about this film is that the band, when they finally get their act together, always seem to play the same old piece, when you're craving for more. Well, that's what made the finale work, by building the expectation, then surpassing it - it's 15 minutes of pure musical splendor, and it really made me wanna stand up from my seat and swing along. Too bad I didn't do that, cos I know the entire audience might just join along with me! So if you're feeling down, and somewhat bored, give this movie a go, and I'd guarantee, you'll be swinging and jazzing along when you emerge from the theatre, craving for more.

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. ;)