Shall we dansu?

I don't like "grade inflation" but I just had to give this a 10. I can't think of anything I didn't like about it. I saw it last night and woke up today thinking about it. I'm sure that the Hollywood remake that someone told me about, with J Lo and Richard Gear, will be excellent, but this original Japanese version from 1996 was so emotional and thought-provoking for me that I am hard-pressed to think of any way that it could be improved, or its setting changed to a different culture.

A story I found worth watching, and with o fist-fight scenes or guns going off or anything of the sort! Imagine that!

All the characters seemed well-developed, ... even non-primary characters had good character-development and enjoyable acting, and the casting seemed very appropriate.

It's always hard to find a good movie-musical in our day and age, and perhaps this doesn't quite qualify (there is plenty of learning how to dance, but no singing) but I really think that Gene Kelly and others who championed a place for dance in our lives would have thought so very highly of this film and the role of dance in helping to tell a story about a middle aged man, successful with a family in Japan, looking for something... he knows not precisely what.

To the team of people in Japan who contributed to this film, thank you for creating and doing it.

Subtitles should not deter you from this charmer of a film. Ballroom Dancing, which is seen as risque in Japan, becomes the unlikely passion of an accountant who has gotten everything he thought he wanted and found he missed out on happiness. He begins classes hoping to meet a girl he saw looking as sad as he was himself, but finds that dance has charms of its own. Like Babette's Feast, the insight into another culture, and the elegant structure of the film leave you more than satisfied.

Watched this last night and was bowled over by the heartfelt story line, the excellent character development, and the good karmic vibe emanating from the acting and movie as a whole.

Without giving away too much of the plot, it begins with an ordinary joe who commutes to his office job every day who becomes inspired to take dance lessons. Along the way the protagonist and the assorted characters he meets in his quest to be smooth on the dance floor learn lessons about others and about themselves.

The story has a prologue about what dancing in Japan symbolizes sociologically, so it isn't exactly as simple to learn to dance in Japan as it is here in the U.S.

The film is lighthearted; you'll laugh out loud at some of the sight gags. Yet it is also dignified in a way hard to describe. All of the film's characters are taken seriously, as they are, and none are diminished because of their "imperfections."

I've been thinking about taking social dance classes with some friends. It just so happened a friend lent me the video on learning to dance. Is this synchronous or what? I think so because now I'm really geeked to give it a try.

Watch this wonderful family film (small children might not get it, but teens certainly would) and smile at the genuine caring you see shown in it time and again.

Why they would make a remake of Shall We Dance is a mystery, as it is perfect as-is.

This film is about a man who has been too caught up with the accepted convention of success, trying to be ever upwardly mobile, working hard so that he could be proud of owning his own home. He assumes this is all there is to life until he accidentally takes up dancing, all because he wanted to get a closer look of a beautiful girl that he sees by the dance studio everyday while riding the subway on his way home.

His was infatuated with her at first, going to the dance class just to idolize her, but he eventually lets himself go and gets himself into the dancing. It eventually becomes apparent to him that there is more to life than working yourself to death. There is a set of oddball characters also learning in the studio, giving the film a lot of laughs and some sense of bonding between the dejected.

There is also revelations of various characters, including the girl he initially admired, giving some depth to them by showing their blemished past and their struggle to overcome it.

The dancing was also engaging, with the big competition at the end, but it is not the usual story where our underdog come out at the top by winning it. Instead, there are downfalls, revelations and redemption.

All these makes it a moving and fun film to watch.

This movie opened in Korea four years later than in Japan due to the now-defunct ban on Japanese pop culture in Korea. But the audiences in Korea were just as enthralled and enchanted by the story as the rest of the world was.

Like Japan, there are many salarymen in Korea who are also facing a mid-life crisis. After the movie premiered in Seoul, dance studios were reporting up to a 50-percent increase in the number of new students.

I took two years of jazz dance during college, and have seen Strictly Ballroom and Dance With Me. But this movie was the driving force behind me finally signing up for ballroom dance (called dancesport in Korea) lessons.

Mr. Aoki was hilarious as the employee who led a double life unbeknownst to his colleagues. It was also interesting to find out the reasons why the other students took lessons.

I too would have taken classes just to get close to the sexy dance instructor alone.

This movie is a perfect ten in my book.