Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (2025)

90% Tomatometer 40 Reviews 89% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings

Successful middle-aged accountant Shohei Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) has a loving wife (Hideko Hara) and a beautiful daughter, but for some reason feels unfulfilled with his life. One night, while riding his commuter train home, Sugiyama spies a beautiful woman, Mai Kishikawa (Tamiyo Kusakari), dancing in a window. Entranced by her beauty, Sugiyama tracks the woman to her dance studio and signs up for ballroom dance lessons in hopes of reinvigorating his mundane existence. Read More Read Less

Shall We Dance?

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Elegantly told by director Masayuki Suo and warmly performed, Shall We Dance? is a delightful celebration of stepping out of one's comfort zone and cutting a rug.

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Critics Reviews

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Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (1) Sarah Kerr Slate [Not] quite art, and it doesn’t qualify as mass entertainment either. But it’s alert to its characters’ constantly evolving desires in ways that high- and low-culture movies, with their strict aesthetics or their mass-market formulas, tend not to be. Aug 21, 2024 Full Review Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (2) Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader Its paper-thin characters turned into caricatures by egregious hamming, this 1996 Japanese comedy drama about shy ballroom dancers is sentimental goo and downright interminable. Aug 21, 2024 Full Review Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (3) Stephen Hunter Washington Post The movie has a great deal of zest and charm, and Yakusho gets so exactly that crest of melancholy that is a man’s early 40s, until he decides to go for another kind of life, that the movie is infinitely touching. Aug 21, 2024 Full Review Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (4) Walter V. Addiego San Francisco Examiner The picture can be enjoyed simply as a droll tale of conventional types indulging in a mild form of rebellion, but offers more than that. Rated: 3/4 Aug 21, 2024 Full Review Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (5) Andy Klein Miami New Times The film successfully walks the thin line between slick commercialism and "serious" realism. It is sentimental, but it comes by its sentiment honestly. Aug 21, 2024 Full Review Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (6) Kit Bowen Hollywood.com Rated: 2/5 Nov 20, 2008 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member The most beautiful movie I've seen in a long time. Simply wonderful. Sightly hilarious that from Japan the mecca to which they aspire is Blackpool, but also it is true...or was.An absolute must see. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member One of the most charming and entertaining films I've seen in a long time... I cared a lot about the characters and they seemed real and not contrived....a classic Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a Japanese film classic. One of the best films I have ever seen. Koji Yakusho and Tamiyo Kusakari are amazing. it is a charming and funny film. Forget the Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez remake. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Absolutely wonderful movie! Funny, quiet, beautiful! Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Japanese language with subtitlesA warm story about an unptight and dutiful 40 something middle management accountant who is finding that his dream of having his own house, pretty wife and young daughter is not turning out to be as fulfilling as he thought it was going to be. As he commutes from his dreary job once more, he glances from the train up to a dance studio opposite one of the train stops and sees a beautiful but melancholic woman staring out the dance room window. Eventually he plucks up the courage to get off the train and make his way to the studio. His initial plan was to meet and maybe even have a relationship with the mysterious dancer. But to do so, he has to enroll in the dance class. Quite quickly he realises that dancing makes him happier and more alive. But keeps it secret from his wife. It seems that in Japan, dancing with someone other than your wife is considered slightly pervy and shameful. His wife soon notices the difference in demeanour and suspects an affair - but in a way his enjoyment of dancing is worse than a physical affair and she feels left out and isolated.It's a gentle film about searching for a more fulfilled life - for some its ballroom dancing. Rated 3.5/5 Stars • Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member Absolutely charming! This Japanese film is an Allstar! Every character is needed, every character adds to the whole. Centered around a middle aged business man seeing a beautiful woman dancing as he passes in the commuter train. This chance encounter leads him on a voyage of discovery of himself, and the many characters he meets on his journey. A wonderful movie!As with all foreign language film. Three warnings:Do not watch the English dubbed version.Watch the subtitled version.And do not waste your time with the American remake of this film. (this is the one to see folks) Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Shall We Dance?

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Cast & Crew

Masayuko Suo Director Kôji Yakusho Shohei Sugiyama Tamiyo Kusakari Mai Kishikawa Naoto Takenaka Tomio Aoki Eriko Watanabe Toyoko Takahashi Yu Tokui Tokichi Hattori
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Shall We Dance?

Shall We Dance? (1996) Shall We Dance? (1996) Shall We Dance? (1996) Shall We Dance? (1996) View more photos

Synopsis Successful middle-aged accountant Shohei Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) has a loving wife (Hideko Hara) and a beautiful daughter, but for some reason feels unfulfilled with his life. One night, while riding his commuter train home, Sugiyama spies a beautiful woman, Mai Kishikawa (Tamiyo Kusakari), dancing in a window. Entranced by her beauty, Sugiyama tracks the woman to her dance studio and signs up for ballroom dance lessons in hopes of reinvigorating his mundane existence.

Director
Masayuko Suo

Producer
Shoji Masui, Yûji Ogata

Screenwriter
Masayuko Suo

Distributor
Miramax Films

Production Co
Miramax

Rating
PG

Genre
Romance

Original Language
Japanese

Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 15, 1996, Wide

Release Date (Streaming)
May 22, 2017

Box Office (Gross USA)
$9.7M

Runtime
2h 15m

Sound Mix
Surround
Shall We Dance? | Rotten Tomatoes (2025)
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