This is very obviously a new version of SHALL WE DANCE? and it is from the same people. Some of the movie is a bit ridiculous (many of the girls seem to instantly get really good, while only the main 4 have to practice, and finally really get Jazz [that is being after the beat and not on the beat]) but that didn’t stop me from loving this movie. It is really fun and has great music. Amazingly I don’t even think they tell all the characters names in this film, but it works. And I have loved Takenaka Naoto since I saw him in Shall We Dance, and he is hysterical here, even if he isn’t the largest part.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

It is summer break, and a group of girls are in a borring make up math test with their teacher (Takenaka Naoto), when the school band leaves for a baseball game, but just after they leave their lunches show up. The girls at school take the meals and take the train to meet the band, but they miss their train stop and end up in the mud. They finally arrive and feed the band, but the food turns out to be bad, and they all get horribly sick. Only 1 member is left, the girls from school having ate his meal, and that is the rich kid Takuo (Yuto Hiraoka). He is determined to recruit the girls who gave the lunches, led by Tomoko (Ueno Juri). The girls get out of class to try to do the band, but they have little or no experience except one geeky girl who decided to join on her own as she can play a recorder named Sekiguchi (Yuika Motokariya) who learns the trombone and a punk guitar player (Sekine Kana) and bass player (Mizuta Fumiko). Then there is the horny girl (Kanjuya Shihori) who likes one of the baseball players and plays the trumpet, and the chubby girl who wants to lose some weight (Toyoshima Yukari). Takuo plays the piano (though he played the cymbals in the band and wanted to quit), and decides they should play big band jazz because they don’t have enough people for a brass band, and they have guitar players who can actually play. At first the girls are incredulous, especially having to run and train, but Tomoko and her friends can’t stand having Sekiguchi be better than them so they keep getting better, but the day before the game the real band and their beautiful teacher returns, so the girls are let off of their obligation. The thing is they don’t want off, and they try and form their own band, but they don’t have money. The main 4 screw up at their job, and get fired, and the other girls spend all their money on expensive bags and clothes, and they quit, but the main 4 and Takuo keep trying. They listen to Sekiguchi and try and pick mushrooms, but realize they are trespassing, but they manage to kill a wild boar, in a wonderfully silly matrixesque scene where the chubby girl ends up climbing a tree and when the boar hits the tree she falls and kills it, and they get enough money to buy used instruments. Then they must get the guitar players ex boyfriends to fix their instruments and they start trying to play, but they are pretty bad, but then a stranger tells Sekiguchi that they need to swing. They chase him down and it turns out to be their teacher who loves jazz and he agrees to teach them, though it turns out he can’t actually play. He does help them though, and they are getting better and play in front of a grocery store, when the rest of the girls see them and rush off to buy instruments, but they don’t have enough money so they sell their clothes and bags and join in. Then they find out about a school band contest and the teacher helps them film a video on top of the school of them playing in the school. Unfortunately the flaky Tomoko doesn’t mail it on time. The girls all get ready and even make uniforms, and she just can’t tell them until they are on their way on a train (they think that Takuo is professing his love, and their is certainly some interest their, but it is never really gone into, but then the train gets stopped, and they all start playing when they hear swing on the radio, but outside of the train the school band bus arrives with the beautiful teacher and it seems a band was kept away by the snow, so they get their place, but they forget their uniforms and almost don’t make it. Of course the girls rock, and the teacher watches from afar, in fact impressing the beautiful teacher who he has liked for some time.

This is a wonderfully fun and lighthearted movie, and makes me want to get the DVD of the Swing Girls one and only concert which they did to promote the film. Pretty cool! The movie is just plain lighthearted fun with good swing music. Not much character or depth here, but it is good clean fun. I do recommend it.