
2026
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
2026
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
After a sudden loss, middle-age ballroom dancer
Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) goes back to the dance studio to get her groove back, only to find a new sexy instructor who inspires more than just slides across the dance floor. Winner of Best direction at Sundance.
Living in their vinyl filled Tokyo house, committed ball-room dancers specialising in Latin dance, middle-aged Haru (Rinko Kikuchi, Babel) and her husband Luis (Alejandro Edda, Narcos: Mexico) are happily married. Months after a sudden and heart-breaking loss, Haru has really lost her mojo. Family members encourage her back to the dance studio where a sexy new instructor Fedir (Alberto Guerra Narcos: Mexico) might just be the one to help her get her sparkling groove back. This year’s Sundance directing award winners gives full range to Academy Award nominee’s Kikuchi’s famed expressiveness in her grief, her slow return to her beloved dancing and her pursuit of a new love interest whose own life might be just a bit too complicated. Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty is also a tribute to internationalism not just on the dance floor but with characters moving through languages English, Spanish and Japanese. The filmmaker’s celebration of cultural and linguistic diversity is matched by his ambitious tonal mash up shifting between melodrama, magic realism and soap-opera.
