By John Corrado
In director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, which won the Directing Award at Sundance earlier this year, Rinko Kikuchi stars as Haru, a Japanese woman who loves ballroom dancing.
Haru lives in Tokyo, and performs in ballroom dance competitions with her husband Luis (Alejandro Edda). Then Luis dies suddenly, and she enters a deep period of grief. When her friends convince her to start taking classes again, Haru is immediately struck by her new instructor, a Spanish dancer named Fedir (Alberto Guerra).
Kubota Wladyka, who also co-wrote the script with Nicholas Huynh, has crafted a film that mixes elements of grounded character drama and quirky comedy with magical realist touches. For example, Haru is visited by a giant black bird that appears like someone in a mascot costume standing in her room.
Kubota Wladyka is trying to do multiple different things, which leads to a film with a somewhat curious tone. Sometimes it works, such as a handful of blissfully done musical numbers, when the characters break into dance. Other times, the film feels overly twee. The film is structured around chapter breaks with cutesy titles that don’t really help, and the story feels stretched thin at just over two hours.
Kikuchi is very good in the role of an eccentric woman trying to navigate grief and the possibility of a new relationship. But the film around her can feel stuck in trying to be quirky for the sake of it, and Haru makes some choices in the second half that don’t feel entirely believable. That said, the final moments of Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! do elevate it, and send us off on enough of a high note.
Film Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)
