Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

jn1356-1 What makes "Casablanca" the great movie it is is that it doesn't try to tell the history of the world; it is not an epic; it is a perfectly polished little gem, "the problems of three little people" told exquisitely."Shall We Dance" is such a polished gem. Set in the Japanese culture where all dancing is suspect, a middle-class middle-management man who has lost the luster of his life sees a beautiful young woman looking wistfully out the window of a dance studio and, eventually, goes looking for her. He finds much, much more.Does infidelity ensue? You'll have to decide for yourself. What does ensue is magic, not Harry Potter magic, the everyday ordinary kind of magic that makes the world of us common people so wonderfully worth living.I've said enough. There is so much sparkle to this gem throughout I feel as if nearly everything I want to tell you is a spoiler.See this movie. You owe it to yourself. You'll thank me.

pontifikator I saw the American cut of this Japanese movie, which has several scenes and characters removed. At that, "Shall We Dance" is a charming movie with tons of heart. Written and directed by Masayuki Suo, "Shall We Dance" has something "Strictly Ballroom" lacks: depth and feeling. I'll compare Baz Luhrman with Oscar Wilde: all flash and showy surface, with nothing underneath. Masayuki Suo has created a film with characters who move us. Koji Yakusho, Naoto Takenaka, Naoto Takenaka, and the other actors are excellent in their roles.The gist of the plot is that Mr. Sugiyama (Yakusho) is an overworked salaryman who spies a lovely younger woman in the window of a dance studio on his way home from work on the train. He has a wife, a daughter, and a mortgage, and no dreams. He takes up ballroom dancing to meet the younger woman, whose father owns the studio and who gives lessons. Dancing, of course, becomes a metaphor, and his fellow students grow from awkward, nameless bumblers to awkward, feeling humans as he (and we) learn to know them. The changes in the minor characters are more dramatic than the subtle growth of Mr. Sugiyama.In "Shall We Dance," learning dance means proceeding from our awkward, graceless first steps to feeling the music and trusting your partner. Feeling emotion and trusting your partner and yourself go hand in hand with learning the dance. The process gets a little heavy-handed as characters spell it out for us, but it didn't detract from the emotional investment we make in watching the characters grow.The movie is often funny without being a comedy, and it's not a romance with budding young love -- Mr. Sugiyama is in his forties, and his dream girl has no romantic interest in him. But they develop a relationship on another, still meaningful level."Shall We Dance" is also the title of a 1937 Astaire-Rogers film, and the Japanese version was remade under the same title in 2004, starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. I have not seen either of these two movies.

Desertman84 Shall We Dance is about a bored accountant Sugiyama,who on his evening commute,always looks at the beautiful woman who gazes wistfully out the window of the Kishikawa School of Dancing. One night he gets off the train, walks into the studio, and signs up for a class. Soon Sugiyama is so engrossed in his dancing he practices his steps on the train platform and under his desk, and becomes good enough for competition, compelling his wife to hire a private investigator to find out why he stays out late and returns home smelling of perfume. Among the colorful characters Sugiyama meets is his coworker Aoki,who transforms himself from geeky systems analyst to hilariously flamboyant (and bad-wigged) lounge lizard. Aoki explains to Sugiyama, "When I finish work, put on the clothes, the wig and become Donny Burns, Latin world champion, and I start to move to the rhythm, I'm so happy, so completely free." Here lies the chief charm of Shall We Dance, the contrast between the ultra-competitive women of the studio--including the one who caught Sugiyama's eye, Mai --and the men who dance simply because they enjoy it.This is a great film tackles issues such as the views on men in the Japanese culture,mid-life crisis and ballroom dancing.The cast in the film were excellent.This is one of the best Japanese films I have ever seen.And it is not a horror film.It takes into consideration the pains of middle-age and the need to feel alive during that stage. Overall,it is the best non-horror Japanese film I have ever seen. Highly recommended to everyone who wants an entertaining movie.

Lee Eisenberg As I understand it, much of the humor in "Shall We Dance?" derives from the stereotype of the Japanese businessman. A businessman in the Land of the Rising Sun is supposed to be very serious and motivated, as Shohei Sugiyama (Kōji Yakusho) is. He's successful but unfulfilled. But taking dancing lessons just might change that.Much like Baz Luhrmann's "Strictly Ballroom", "Shall We Dance?" shows that dancing is a physical form of communication. Shohei feels cut off from his wife and daughter, but the dance lessons help him open up. The movie knows how to present everything just right so that it comes across naturally and without seeming like a cliché. There was an American remake, but I have no plans to ever see that one.