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Preview by: Jack Foley
NOT content with remaking Japanese thrillers and horror films,
Hollywood has now turned to its romantic comedies for inspiration
- and UK fans of Strictly Ballroom Dancing could well be in for
a treat.
Shall We Dance? takes its cue from a popular 1996 Japanese film
of the same name (starring Koji Yakusyo and Tamiyo Kusakari),
and features a strong ensemble line-up, including Richard Gere,
Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci and Bobby Cannavale
(of The Station Agent fame).
Gere plays Chicago-based lawyer, John Clark, who finds himself
seeking more from life even though it appears to be perfect.
When he sees a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez) peering out of
the window of a dance class, however, he becomes captivated by
her gaze and, one night, resolves to join the dance class, thereby
discovering a world he never knew existed.
Soon dance becomes John's obsession, his escapism and means of
finding joy, yet he cannot bring himself to tell his wife (Sarandon)
and children, prompting them to become suspicious and hire a detective
to find out if he is having an affair.
Things come to a head when John is entered into Chicago's biggest
dance competition...
The original Shall We Dance, directed by Masayuki Suo, captured
the hearts of Japanese film-goers, thanks to its comic characters
and rousing dance sequences. It subsequently earned 13 Japanese
Academy Awards.
The remake, directed by Peter Chelsom (of Serendipity
fame) probably won't win any, despite being backed by awards specialists,
Miramax.
Yet for fans of Gere, it offers an agreeable mix of the suave
charm he showed in Pretty Woman with the dance choreography he
first learned in Chicago.
Indeed, the actor confesses to having had his own love affair
with dance, and the freedom and fun it brings, ever since his
tap-dancing role in the Oscar-winning musical.
"The emotional and psychological challenges of really opening
yourself up to a dancing partner, of becoming sensitive to every
move, of accessing deeper emotions to express yourself, changes
you," he explained.
"That's why we still love Fred Astaire, because his grace
and his open heart still move us today. There's just something
about dancing that has power."
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US reaction
Unlike his role in Chicago, however,
Gere wasn't able to win over quite so many American critics when
the film opened in October 2004.
The film received largely mixed reviews, with the Los
Angeles Times getting the ball rolling by describing
it as 'a sleek Hollywood crowd-pleaser, more movie than art film,
but its makers have wisely stuck not only to the spirit but often
even to the letter of the original'.
The Dallas Morning News agreed, stating that
it is 'a polished, feel-good movie that will be most appreciated
by those who went back for second helpings of My
Big Fat Greek Wedding'.
While the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: "So
supple is this story about the man with two lead feet who walks
into a dance class and then waltzes out of his midlife funk, that
it pretty much survives the transplant from its Tokyo Zen garden
to a Windy City rose arbor."
On a more negative note, however, was the Hollywood Reporter,
which wrote it off as 'a listless, Hollywooden affair populated
by generic characters that are either blandly underdeveloped (in
the case of the leads) or drawn with tired broad strokes'.
And USA Today, which felt it 'turns a sweet,
lilting story into a clunky, clichéd and tedious movie
sitcom'.
The New York Post was equally derisory, stating
that 'there isn't even any exciting dancing here, and what hoofing
there is has been heavily edited, usually with the dancers' feet
cropped off'.
While the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that
'where the original soared, the new version hugs the ground. It's
like the difference between Fred Astaire's dancing and Richard
Gere's'.
And Entertainment Weekly lamented that it's
'a movie that can't decide whether to frown or twirl'.
But returning to the positives, and Variety
in particular, which noted that 'it's shamelessly direct in its
emotional targeting, but in a gentle, inoffensive way that will
appeal to viewers who prefer the old storytelling formulas to
the more sensationalistic contemporary approach'.
Likewise, the Boston Globe, which wrote: "Gere
is a pleasure, smiling and spinning and high-fiving his two classmates
- played by Bobby Cannavale and Omar Miller - and the movie is
happy and extremely likable'.
And About.com, which concludes this overview
by stating that 'Stanley Tucci is the reason to see Shall We Dance?'
The movie is due to arrive in Britain just after Valentine's
Day, on February 18, 2005. |
