I’ve Had the Time of My Life with this high-spirited dancing romcom.
We have a lot of “Dirty Dancing” spirits in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty,” a cultural intersection romcom that has exuberant visual ideas, as well as heart and humor. Spoken in Japanese, Spanish, and English, there’s a certain complexity of grief, love, loss, passion, and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. And a lot set to tunes of classic hits of all the cultures represented here.
Rinko Kikuchi now has an afro as Haru, a Japanese woman who loves her Mexican husband Luis (Alejandro Edda). At dinner, before they eat, they each say: “Enjoy Señorita” and “Enjoy Senorito.” And they both love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dancing contests, until the day he dies during the competition. Her grief results in herself slow dancing with her ghost husband in a giant black bird costume, and not even showing up to her own birthday party. She’s completely given up on dancing without Luis.
At the urging of her friends Hiromi (You) and Yuki (Yoh Yoshida), she goes with them back to her dance studio, where the new instructor Fedir (Alberto Guerra) turns her on. He believes dancing is about being present, instead of spending all your time in your room texting. He wants to preserve the ballroom dancing spirit, as any dancer should. The same thing goes for the movie-going experience in a movie theater. And like Haru, he also has a spouse Mila (Keren Louis), except he’s in an open marriage.
As part of her grief, Luis in that black bird costume begins to threaten her romance with the new guy. Especially since she doesn’t tell him about her dead husband, and lies about being in an open marriage, too.
I mean it when I say this movie is an exuberant visual piece. What starts off as a fight becomes a musical to the tune of “Be My Baby.” In other versions, it could have been angrier and more violent, but in the vision of director Josef Kubota Wladyka, it’s delightful and artistic. And there’s a subway sequence where Haru puts her headphones on, listens to The Cranberrie’s acoustic version of “Dreams,” and dances along with some of the passengers she crosses with. Wladyka and co-writer Nicholas Huynh take what could be formulas and give them fun spins. It makes you wonder why your New York City subway couldn’t be as fun as this subway ride is.
The best use of make-up in the film is when Haru dresses like she’s celebrating the Day of the Dead. She has the white make-up on, with black marks, and flowers in her afro. It takes place at a costume party, then at her lover’s abode, and then in a jail cell. And I must say that make-up looks expensive if she’s going to keep wearing it the next day.
Kikuchi has made a name for herself with movies like “Babel” and “Pacific Rim,” and in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty,” she adds a blend of passion, grief, and art. It’s a delightful performance from her, and she also has terrific supporting work from both Guerra and Edda. We know it would be a dream sequence of the main heroine’s subconscious mind when they’re both in the same room as her, but it doesn’t have to seem so cliche. I like to consider this magic realism in a sense.
One a closing note, the cultural intersection provides the right kind of passion, art, and character development. Nobody is offended, traditions can be valued, and chemistry is needed to examine all lovers in the film. And periodically, we have chapters spoken first in English and then in Japanese. And I think you know what dance movie they’re referencing. “Chapter 5: Nobody Puts Baby in The Corner.”
In Select Theaters This Friday