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Jun 19, 2013akirakato rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
This is a 2004 American film directed by Peter Chelsom. It is a remake of the award-winning 1996 Japanese film of the same title, written and directed by Masayuki Suo (周防 正行). I enjoyed the Japanese version so much that the American remake looks shadowed in the back of my mind simply because ballroom dancing in Japan is considered "weird" or "sissy" among men, if not the Japasene in general, while it is not abnormal at all in the States. For a Japanese man to join the dancing class, therefore, he needs a great deal of courage and expects a lewd remark from his coworkers once they finds it out. So, a Japanese man in the class always feels tension and senses a spying eye around as if a gay man had to have a courage to come out when worse comes worst. I can't feel this tension at all in the American remake. At the end, Paulina, having been inspired by John to take up competing again, is leaving to go to Blackpool, England. Compared to her counterpart in the Japanese version, Paulina doesn't show her character change in such a dramatic way as Mai does in the Japanese version. This remake, however, offers pleasures of its own in the sense that it focuses more on entertainment rather than on serious character study. For example, the end scene shows everyone afterwards: Link and Bobbie are now together; Chic, who was actually gay, dances at a club with his partner; Miss Mitzi finds a new partner, and they are happy together; John and Beverly are back to normal and dance in the kitchen; Vern, newly married to his fiancée, dances with her at their wedding; the private investigator that Beverly hired, Devine (Richard Jenkins), starts up dance lessons; and Paulina, with a new partner, competes at Blackpool, the competition that she had lost years before.