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- How this film blends mourning and movement
- Storyline in plain terms
- Major themes: love, memory, and theatrical escape
- Performances that carry the film
- Director’s touch and storytelling choices
- Scenes that stand out
- Why the film may resonate with audiences
- Production notes and where it premiered
- Final impressions from the screening
I once showed up at a relative’s funeral in a skirt patterned with white octopus tentacles. I had no black clothes and didn’t want to pretend. A cousin glanced, tensed a smile, and said something our grandmother would have said: a backhanded compliment that stung and soothed at once. That small, human spark—finding joy inside sorrow—came back to me watching Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, a film that folds grief into dance, fantasy, and awkward laughter.
How this film blends mourning and movement
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! mixes sadness with quirky warmth. Director Josef Kubota Wladyka balances humorous beats and tender scenes.
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The movie treats grief as messy and strangely comic. It doesn’t force neat resolutions. Instead, it allows a widow’s imagination to carry her through moments of denial, longing, and rebirth.
Storyline in plain terms
Rinko Kikuchi plays Haru, a Tokyo resident whose greatest joy is dancing. The couple she shares that joy with is a devoted Mexican husband named Luis, played by Alejandro Edda. They compete in local Latin dance events and dream in sync—until a sudden death shatters Haru’s world.
What happens next
- Haru loses the man she dances with and stops dancing.
- Her pragmatic sister and uninhibited cousin try to pull her back into life.
- She finds a new dance class and is drawn to its charismatic teacher, Fedir (Alberto Guerra).
- Haru navigates fantasies that bring the dead and the living together.
These fantasies are not just fleeting images. They function as emotional rehearsals, where Haru imagines conversations, reconciliations, and even playful jealousies.
Major themes: love, memory, and theatrical escape
The film treats the stage as a place to work through loss. Dance scenes are more than spectacle. They are a language for grief.
Fantasy sequences let Haru talk to her past and test new futures. At times those visions are whimsical—a crow costume, a shared drink over a vinyl record collection. Other moments grow bold and messy, revealing how complicated moving on can be.
Performances that carry the film
Kikuchi anchors the piece with a mix of vulnerability and eccentricity. She can be comedic, then abruptly raw. That contrast keeps us leaning in.
- Rinko Kikuchi—conveys a woman clinging to ritual while relearning how to live.
- Alejandro Edda—as the lost husband, he exists primarily in memory. His presence is felt in small, warm gestures.
- Alberto Guerra—as the romantic teacher, he alternates between inspiration and real-world messiness.
- Supporting cast—Haru’s sister and cousin bring humor and pressure that feel earned.
The ensemble’s chemistry converts awkward beats into heartfelt truth. Comic set pieces land because the actors commit to both the silliness and the pain beneath it.
Director’s touch and storytelling choices
Wladyka and co-writer Nicholas Huynh use a loose, almost improvisational structure. Scenes drift into imagined conversations and back again. The film refuses tidy categorization as pure comedy or pure drama.
Visual and tonal choices
- Dance numbers are filmed as interior fantasies and public displays.
- Costume and music swing between kitsch and reverence.
- The editing treats memory like a playlist—tracks loop, skip, and sometimes merge.
These choices emphasize how grief distorts time and memory. Joy and sorrow can coexist in a single scene. That contradiction is the film’s central engine.
Scenes that stand out
Certain sequences linger: a community dance class, a theatrical take on a famous romantic movie, and an absurd home-invasion spectacle driven by jealousy. Each one reveals a different coping mechanism.
The Dirty Dancing–style sequence delights by turning stage craft into catharsis. A later, more chaotic scene blends farce and heartbreak in surprising ways.
Why the film may resonate with audiences
Not everyone will relate to Haru’s exact choices. But many will recognize the strange behaviors grief produces.
- The film grants permission to feel contradictory things at once.
- It rewards viewers who accept tonal shifts.
- It finds tenderness in awkward, human moments.
By the end of many scenes, you may laugh through tears or wince at decisions that feel all too familiar. That emotional ambivalence is deliberate.
Production notes and where it premiered
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. The festival presentation highlighted the movie’s strong central performance and its unusual tonal balance.
The theatrical release is set for Sept. 25. Festival buzz centers on its bold blend of comedy and grief, and on Kikuchi’s layered work.
Final impressions from the screening
This movie is playful without denying sorrow. It takes risks with fantasy and romance to probe what it means to keep loving after loss.
Expect a film that alternates between warmth and discomfort, and that rewards patience. The choreography, both literal and narrative, asks us to accept imperfect, human movement forward.
