Haru’s (Rinko Kikuchi) entire family showed up to her birthday party but she isn’t in the mood to celebrate. She’s still mourning the death of her late husband Luis (Alejandro Edda), who dies during one of their ballroom contests. Thankfully, her sisters Hiromi (YOU) and Yuki (Yoh Yoshida) get her out of her nice house. They also get her to dance again. Specifically, they get her into a dancing class with Fedir (Alberto Guerra), both an award winning dancer and is hot. Despite his presence in her life, she goes back and forth between normalcy and watching TV on her couch. Things get more complex as she pretends Luis is alive and Fedir’s dancer wife Christina (Cristina Rodlo) flies into Japan.

This film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to mixed reviews and also came to Toronto to mixed reviews. I’m afraid that this one is growing on me and is gonna turn into a ‘stand on business’ film. This is one of the few films that do emotional swings and genre touches well in depicting life’s changes. That initial dance sequence is gorgeous, starting out as a happy moment for Haru, only to turn for the worse. Dance as an art form is heightened enough as it is, and making characters fly and fall are very impactful. Giving us magic realism, scenes in Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! have Fedir and Haru dance, look, and move like titans on the big screen.

Japan is also an important character in Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, the birthplace of director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s mother. In a way, this film presents Japan as a melting pot, and it does it through its ballroom subculture. I haven’t seen Shall We Dance but it feels like there’s less stigma with dancing during this present day. It also shows the country as a place comfortable enough for Luis to meet Haru and speak three different languages. There’s such great world building in those first twenty minutes that carry over for the rest of the film. The same goes for its depiction of Japanese media, heightened, comfort TV for Haru when she’s not feeling herself.

Ballroom culture also appears in Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, showing up in contests where professionals and amateurs can dance together. For the most part though, that culture exists in humble teaching studios, an eventual avenue for professionals like Fedir. The tension between him and Haru, romantic, mental, etc., culminates at a Halloween party where she physically attacks Christina. Yes, grief can bring out the worst parts in some people, although it thankfully doesn’t excuse what she does. The rest of the film tackles modern romances, open relationships, breakups over texts, and Haru doing something more crazy. Telling her story is a film that matches her extreme emotions, taking its viewers for the ride of their lives.