Coral Gables Art Cinema opens “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” on Friday with a red carpet night that puts the film’s subject on the floor before the lights go down: a wine reception at 7:30 p.m. and a brief ballroom demonstration by dancers from DanceSway Ballroom, followed by the 8 p.m. screening.
The film won the directing award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered in January. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing it nationally the same day it opens in Coral Gables.
A love story that starts after the loss
Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi plays Haru, a Tokyo woman whose life revolves around competitive ballroom dancing with her husband and partner, Luis, played by Alejandro Edda. When Luis dies suddenly, Haru withdraws from the world. Friends eventually coax her back to the studio, where she finds herself drawn to the new instructor, played by Alberto Guerra. The cast also includes the Japanese actress and television personality YOU, Yoh Yoshida and the Mexican actor Damián Alcázar.
Reviewers out of Sundance singled out how the film mixes grief with comedy and fantasy, most memorably by having Luis return in Haru’s imagination as a large black crow. The film moves among Japanese, English and Spanish, with English subtitles, and Kikuchi learned ballroom dancing and performed in English and Spanish for the role.
A director’s most personal film
Director Josef Kubota Wladyka, who wrote the script with Nicholas Huynh, has said the story was inspired by the spirit of his mother, Ha-Chan. It is a turn from his earlier features, the thrillers “Manos Sucias,” set on Colombia’s Pacific coast, and “Catch the Fair One.” Wladyka and Kikuchi previously worked together on the series “Tokyo Vice,” on which he directed episodes and she starred.
The cinema’s executive and programming director, Brenda Moe, called it one of her favorite films from this year’s Sundance. In a note to audiences, she wrote that grief is “its own character in the film,” one that is messy and impulsive where the ballroom dancing is orderly, and that the film lets its mature characters be complicated, funny and full of desire.
A dance lesson with your ticket
DanceSway Ballroom is extending an offer to moviegoers: new students who show a ticket to the film, or mention Coral Gables Art Cinema when booking, can get three private lessons for $295 plus a free 30-minute private lesson.
If you go…
“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” opens Friday, Sept. 25, at Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., with the red carpet reception at 7:30 p.m. and screening at 8 p.m. Regular screenings that day are at 2 and 4:30 p.m., and the film continues through at least Oct. 1. Regular tickets are $8 for members and up to $12.75 for nonmembers; opening-night event pricing is listed separately on the cinema’s website, gablescinema.com. The film runs 122 minutes and is not rated. For information, call 786-472-2249.
