An American Remake Of A Japanese Movie On Ballroom Dancing

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2011)

"Shall We Dance?",an American remake of the Japanese movie,"Shall We Dansu?",is a movie about John Clark and ballroom dancing.
John Clark is a man with a wonderful job as a Estates lawyer.He,too has a charming wife and a wonderful family. But despite of all these things that he possesses,he still feels that something is missing big in his life as he makes his way every day inside the train through the city of Chicago.
Each evening on his train commute home, John sees a beautiful woman, staring with a melancholic expression through the window of a dance studio. Haunted by her sadness, he impulsively takes off the train one night, and signs up for ballroom dancing lessons, hoping to get to know her. It seems like a mistake. His teacher turns out to be not Paulina, but the older and alcoholic owner of the dance studio,Miss Mitzi.He proves just as clumsy just like his classmates on the dance-floor. Even worse, when he does meet Paulina, she rudely tells John to seriously study dance and not to look chance to get to have dinner with her.But, as his lessons continue, John falls in love with dancing. Keeping his new obsession a secret from his family and co-workers, he works hard and get himself involved for Chicago's biggest dance competition.
The movie basically was a love story between John and his wife and how dancing gets involved in it instead of a man losing his inhibitions and not worrying about cultural and society expectations about dancing.This is where the remake falters.Aside from that,the acting by Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez are far from being decent. Also, the rest of the cast does not compare with the original.The movie as a whole lacks subtlety and fails to provide many laughs as some characters are forced to be funny especially those played by Stanley Tucci,who portrayed Link; and Lisa Ann Walter,who tried her best to be annoying as Bonnie. One simply cannot prevent from comparing this remake to the original.
Nevertheless,this is still a decent remake unlike others like the horrible My Sassy Girl remake starring Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford from the great Korean classic of the movie with the same title.But not as good as The Departed,a remake of the Hong Kong Classic Infernal Affairs.Overall,it is still a good movie to watch especially for Richard Gere and JLo fans.