In 1996, Masayuki Suo‘s heartwarming feature “Shall We Dance?” charmed critics and audiences, receiving additional acclaim following its subsequent international release. Its major success even spawned an American remake starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. With Suo’s original hit gaining renewed attention thanks to the 4K restoration of the original uncut version and theatrical re-release by Film Movement, it’s the perfect time to revisit what makes this film so enduringly special.
The premise is quite simple. Salaryman Shohei Sugiyama leads a stable life with a steady job, a loving wife and child, and a comfortable home. Even with his clear love for his family, he feels that something is missing, a depression brought on by a longing to fill that personal emptiness. One evening during his commute home, he notices a beautiful woman gazing out the window of a dance studio. Infatuated, he visits the building to find out who she is.
The premise is quite simple. Salaryman Shohei Sugiyama leads a stable life with a steady job, a loving wife and child, and a comfortable home. Even with his clear love for his family, he feels that something is missing, a depression brought on by a longing to fill that personal emptiness. One evening during his commute home, he notices a beautiful woman gazing out the window of a dance studio. Infatuated, he visits the building to find out who she is.
- 5/31/2025
- by Sean Barry
- AsianMoviePulse
Translation by Kennedy Taylor
Masayuki Suo is an award-winning filmmaker best known internationally for his acclaimed film “Shall We Dance?.” The movie follows Shohei Sugiyama, a successful but depressed salaryman who finds new meaning in life when he secretly takes up ballroom dance lessons. Both funny and heartfelt, the feature stars Koji Yakusho in a memorable role that stands out in his filmography. Tamiyo Kusakari, an experienced dancer, co-stars alongside Yakusho in her acting debut.
In conjunction with the 4K restoration and theatrical re-release of the original uncut version of “Shall We Dance?,” we speak with Masayuki Suo and Tamiyo Kusakari about the film, ballroom dancing, self-expression, and more.
With its renewed attention, what is it like reflecting on the film all these years later?
Masayuki Suo: I mean, in the first place, I never imagined my movie would ever get to be seen and enjoyed by people in America.
Masayuki Suo is an award-winning filmmaker best known internationally for his acclaimed film “Shall We Dance?.” The movie follows Shohei Sugiyama, a successful but depressed salaryman who finds new meaning in life when he secretly takes up ballroom dance lessons. Both funny and heartfelt, the feature stars Koji Yakusho in a memorable role that stands out in his filmography. Tamiyo Kusakari, an experienced dancer, co-stars alongside Yakusho in her acting debut.
In conjunction with the 4K restoration and theatrical re-release of the original uncut version of “Shall We Dance?,” we speak with Masayuki Suo and Tamiyo Kusakari about the film, ballroom dancing, self-expression, and more.
With its renewed attention, what is it like reflecting on the film all these years later?
Masayuki Suo: I mean, in the first place, I never imagined my movie would ever get to be seen and enjoyed by people in America.
- 5/31/2025
- by Sean Barry
- AsianMoviePulse
Masayuki Suô’s beloved romantic comedy “Shall We Dance?” is finally getting a proper U.S. release. The 1996 feature stars Oscar nominee Kôji Yakusho in one of his breakout roles as a married accountant who becomes intoxicated by the world of competitive ballroom dancing. Yakusho most recently led “Perfect Days.”
The official synopsis for “Shall We Dance?” reads: “Shohei Sugiyama (Yakusho) seems to have it all — a high-paying job as an accountant, a beautiful home, a caring wife and a doting daughter he loves dearly. However, he feels something is missing in his life. One day, while commuting on the train, he spots a beautiful woman staring wistfully out a window and eventually decides to find her. His search leads him head-first into the world of competitive ballroom dancing.”
Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka, Eri Watanabe, Yû Tokui, Hiromasa Taguchi, Reiko Kusamura, and Hideko Hara also star.
The Japanese film was released in the U.
The official synopsis for “Shall We Dance?” reads: “Shohei Sugiyama (Yakusho) seems to have it all — a high-paying job as an accountant, a beautiful home, a caring wife and a doting daughter he loves dearly. However, he feels something is missing in his life. One day, while commuting on the train, he spots a beautiful woman staring wistfully out a window and eventually decides to find her. His search leads him head-first into the world of competitive ballroom dancing.”
Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka, Eri Watanabe, Yû Tokui, Hiromasa Taguchi, Reiko Kusamura, and Hideko Hara also star.
The Japanese film was released in the U.
- 4/28/2025
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Se Asian movies, at least as they are perceived in their whole by the majority of international audience, are known for a number of things: Horror, violence, Wong Kar Wai, Park Chan-wook and Takashi Miike (ok, I am just oversimplifying things here). So, for this list I decided to show another aspect of Asian movies, not so frequently mentioned or even considered for that matter, apart from the Bollywood movies that is. Without further ado, here are 12 great dancing scenes from Asian movies, with the lion’s share belonging to Wong Kar Wai, who has presented a number of astonishing sequences through the years.
1. Lai Yiu-fai and Ho Po-wing are dancing in a kitchen (Wong Kar Wai, Happy Together,1997, Hong Kong)
Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung are tangoing in the middle of a kitchen, with their love and adoration for each other becoming evident by the way they look at and lean on each other.
1. Lai Yiu-fai and Ho Po-wing are dancing in a kitchen (Wong Kar Wai, Happy Together,1997, Hong Kong)
Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung are tangoing in the middle of a kitchen, with their love and adoration for each other becoming evident by the way they look at and lean on each other.
- 3/3/2018
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
An official website for Masayuki Suo’s The Terminal Trust has been launched along with a YouTube embed of the film’s new teaser trailer.
As you can tell from the opening frame of the teaser, the big PR draw of this project seems to be the fact that it reunites Koji Yakusho and Tamiyo Kusakari, co-stars of Suo’s blockbuster 1996 film “Shall We Dance?” The pair have not appeared together in anything else until now.
The new film deals with “sanctity of life” concerns vs. the right to be allowed to die. Kusakari plays a doctor named Ayano Orii and Yakusho plays Shinzo Egi, a patient with a serious illness who tells her that when the time comes, he wants her to ease his suffering quickly by not placing him on life support. Tadanobu Asano and Takao Osawa also co-star.
“The Terminal Trust” will be released by Toho in...
As you can tell from the opening frame of the teaser, the big PR draw of this project seems to be the fact that it reunites Koji Yakusho and Tamiyo Kusakari, co-stars of Suo’s blockbuster 1996 film “Shall We Dance?” The pair have not appeared together in anything else until now.
The new film deals with “sanctity of life” concerns vs. the right to be allowed to die. Kusakari plays a doctor named Ayano Orii and Yakusho plays Shinzo Egi, a patient with a serious illness who tells her that when the time comes, he wants her to ease his suffering quickly by not placing him on life support. Tadanobu Asano and Takao Osawa also co-star.
“The Terminal Trust” will be released by Toho in...
- 5/27/2012
- Nippon Cinema
Warner Bros. Japan has uploaded the full trailer for Gisaburo Sugii’s upcoming animated film Guskō Budori no Denki to their YouTube channel.
The film is based on a fairy tale by Kenji Miyazawa about a young man who’s driven from his forest home by a natural disaster and begins working with scientists at the Ihatov Volcano Bureau in hopes of preventing similar disasters from occurring in the future. Sugii previously adapted Miyazawa’s most notable work, Night on the Galactic Railroad, in 1985.
Like the 1985 film, this adaptation features anthropomorphic cat characters instead of humans. It also involves Gusko Budori’s sister Neri being kidnapped and is obviously steeped in new fantasy elements added for this version.
Here’s main voice cast:
Shun Oguri as Gusko Budori
Shioli Kutsuna as Neri
Ryuzo Hayashi as Father
Tamiyo Kusakari as Mother
Kuranosuke Sasaki as the kidnapper
Akira Emoto as Dr. Kubo...
The film is based on a fairy tale by Kenji Miyazawa about a young man who’s driven from his forest home by a natural disaster and begins working with scientists at the Ihatov Volcano Bureau in hopes of preventing similar disasters from occurring in the future. Sugii previously adapted Miyazawa’s most notable work, Night on the Galactic Railroad, in 1985.
Like the 1985 film, this adaptation features anthropomorphic cat characters instead of humans. It also involves Gusko Budori’s sister Neri being kidnapped and is obviously steeped in new fantasy elements added for this version.
Here’s main voice cast:
Shun Oguri as Gusko Budori
Shioli Kutsuna as Neri
Ryuzo Hayashi as Father
Tamiyo Kusakari as Mother
Kuranosuke Sasaki as the kidnapper
Akira Emoto as Dr. Kubo...
- 5/2/2012
- Nippon Cinema
Film review: 'Shall We Dance?'
"Gotta sing, gotta dance" -- but not if you're a middle-aged Japanese businessman in a country that frowns on public contact with the opposite sex.
Winner of the equivalent of 13 Oscars in Japan, "Shall We Dance?" is a limber gem, a kind and inspirational depiction of the personal blossoming of a repressed, nondescript middle-manager whose clandestine ballroom dance lessons bring him great release and awaken him to the joys of life.
Similar in tone and theme to Vittorio De Sica's classic "A Brief Vacation", in which a female Italian factory worker opens up and thrives during a stint away from her repressive family life, this Miramax release is a delightful tonic for a summer overladen with cardboard characters. To boot, it's refreshing to see a sympathetic and insightful depiction of a middle-aged businessman, usually the object of ridicule these days.
Reportedly, the success of the film has started a ballroom dance craze in Japan, where "business golf" is one of the few enjoyments afforded the workaholic "salary man," namely the millions of worker-bee, white-collar men who ride the trains every day into the big cities from their hutchlike houses and toil in lock-step regularity.
In this remarkable character study, Koji Yakusho stars as Shohei, a burned-out businessman who, on an otherwise dispirited train ride home, captures a glimpse of a graceful dancer in an upstairs window. It is the silhouette of a beautiful instructor, Mai (Tamiyo Kusakari), and the vision becomes an obsession. Soon he finds himself getting off the train, entering the school and signing up for ballroom dance instruction despite the fact he can hardly afford it.
Like a bashful schoolboy, Shohei begins his lessons but not, to his quiet regret, with the beautiful instructress who inspired him to come there in the first place.
Not surprisingly, Shohei is a stiff and tentative dancer, a manifestation of his repressed nature and his socially ingrained tendency not to open up and express himself.
Indeed, it's with small steps, some of them crisscrossed and in the wrong direction, that Shohei begins his personal awakening as emblematized by his growing personal confidence with his dancing and himself.
Wonderfully comic and spry, "Shall We Dance?" is a glowing portrait of people coming out of their shell and, through dance, connecting not only with others but with themselves.
Flavored with idiosyncratic personal textures and widened by its cultural and social insights, "Shall We Dance?" is a masterfully told, universal story, written and directed by Masayuki Suo with grace, verve and delicacy.
The lead players are wonderful, particularly Yakusho as the repressed businessman who comes to find himself and Kusakari as the elusive instructress.
Technical credits are similarly polished and well-heeled, particularly cinematographer Naoki Kayano's illuminating scopings of the oppressive structures of modern-day Japanese life. The film is continually lifted by the zesty cuts of editors Kiyoshi Yoneyama and Jun'ichi Kikuchi.
SHALL WE DANCE?
Miramax Films
Producers Masayuki Suo,
Shoji Masui, Yuji Ogata
Screenwriter-director Masayuki Suo
Executive producers Hiroyuki Kato,
Seiji Urushido, Shigeru Ohno,
Kazuhiro Igarashi, Tetsuya Ikeda
Director of photography Naoki Kayano
Lighting director Tatsuya Osada
Production designer Kyoko Heya
Sound mixer-editor Kiyoshi Yoneyama
Editor Jun'ichi Kikuchi
Music Yoshikazu Suo
"Shall We Dance?" performed by Taeko Ohnuki
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shohei Sugiyama Koji Yakusho
Mai Kishikawa Tamiyo Kusakari
Tomio Aoki Naoto Takenaka
Toyoko Takahashi Eriko Watanabe
Toru Miwa Akira Emoto
Tokichi Hattori Yu Tokui
Masahiro Tanaka Hiromasa Taguchi
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Winner of the equivalent of 13 Oscars in Japan, "Shall We Dance?" is a limber gem, a kind and inspirational depiction of the personal blossoming of a repressed, nondescript middle-manager whose clandestine ballroom dance lessons bring him great release and awaken him to the joys of life.
Similar in tone and theme to Vittorio De Sica's classic "A Brief Vacation", in which a female Italian factory worker opens up and thrives during a stint away from her repressive family life, this Miramax release is a delightful tonic for a summer overladen with cardboard characters. To boot, it's refreshing to see a sympathetic and insightful depiction of a middle-aged businessman, usually the object of ridicule these days.
Reportedly, the success of the film has started a ballroom dance craze in Japan, where "business golf" is one of the few enjoyments afforded the workaholic "salary man," namely the millions of worker-bee, white-collar men who ride the trains every day into the big cities from their hutchlike houses and toil in lock-step regularity.
In this remarkable character study, Koji Yakusho stars as Shohei, a burned-out businessman who, on an otherwise dispirited train ride home, captures a glimpse of a graceful dancer in an upstairs window. It is the silhouette of a beautiful instructor, Mai (Tamiyo Kusakari), and the vision becomes an obsession. Soon he finds himself getting off the train, entering the school and signing up for ballroom dance instruction despite the fact he can hardly afford it.
Like a bashful schoolboy, Shohei begins his lessons but not, to his quiet regret, with the beautiful instructress who inspired him to come there in the first place.
Not surprisingly, Shohei is a stiff and tentative dancer, a manifestation of his repressed nature and his socially ingrained tendency not to open up and express himself.
Indeed, it's with small steps, some of them crisscrossed and in the wrong direction, that Shohei begins his personal awakening as emblematized by his growing personal confidence with his dancing and himself.
Wonderfully comic and spry, "Shall We Dance?" is a glowing portrait of people coming out of their shell and, through dance, connecting not only with others but with themselves.
Flavored with idiosyncratic personal textures and widened by its cultural and social insights, "Shall We Dance?" is a masterfully told, universal story, written and directed by Masayuki Suo with grace, verve and delicacy.
The lead players are wonderful, particularly Yakusho as the repressed businessman who comes to find himself and Kusakari as the elusive instructress.
Technical credits are similarly polished and well-heeled, particularly cinematographer Naoki Kayano's illuminating scopings of the oppressive structures of modern-day Japanese life. The film is continually lifted by the zesty cuts of editors Kiyoshi Yoneyama and Jun'ichi Kikuchi.
SHALL WE DANCE?
Miramax Films
Producers Masayuki Suo,
Shoji Masui, Yuji Ogata
Screenwriter-director Masayuki Suo
Executive producers Hiroyuki Kato,
Seiji Urushido, Shigeru Ohno,
Kazuhiro Igarashi, Tetsuya Ikeda
Director of photography Naoki Kayano
Lighting director Tatsuya Osada
Production designer Kyoko Heya
Sound mixer-editor Kiyoshi Yoneyama
Editor Jun'ichi Kikuchi
Music Yoshikazu Suo
"Shall We Dance?" performed by Taeko Ohnuki
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shohei Sugiyama Koji Yakusho
Mai Kishikawa Tamiyo Kusakari
Tomio Aoki Naoto Takenaka
Toyoko Takahashi Eriko Watanabe
Toru Miwa Akira Emoto
Tokichi Hattori Yu Tokui
Masahiro Tanaka Hiromasa Taguchi
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 7/10/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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