Yet Japan hasn't been stuck in a time warp, away from the deadly dancing fevers of swing, disco, line-dancing, salsa and hip hop. Last year, a Japanese couple won second place in stage tango in the third World Tango Dancing Championships. To be clear, that championship was for Argentine tango, not American tango - an American ballroom standardized version, nor international tango, the variation that would be danced in Blackpool. Argentine tango is considered a nightclub dance, like hustle, East Coast and West Coast swing.
The Japanese movie centered on a man, Shohei Sugiyama, who was quiet, serious and respected, working an accounting job that didn't require leadership or draw attention to him in any way. He doesn't join in the company gossip, most of which centers upon the geeky Tomio (Naoto Takenaka). Sugiyama's counterpart, Mai, is just as reserved, serious and aloof as he is. Both of them need to learn the joy of dancing and even the happiness from finding interest in life outside of work.
In the 2004 American version, you can just imagine the executives, writers and producers thinking — in this pre-Dancing With the Stars time period — that perhaps ballroom is scandalous enough for the Japanese, but that won't fly with American audiences. Who would watch stars dancing ballroom?
We need to sex it up, they were thinking. Can we get in something like hip hop for the young audiences? Oh, let's add a son so the protagonist can accidentally meet him and go to a modern dance place. That will draw in the young people. And what about having some sexy women and men in skimpy outfits dancing? Sure. That ballrooom practice dance scene is too boring. After all, Americans won't want to watch frumpy middle-aged men and women dancing. That might be OK for a Japanese audience. That would be too embarrassing, too boring.
No, let's get in some sexy dancers. They'll be dancing samba. We can have a samba dance line. Then they'll break into a waltz. That makes sense. People dressed in ballroom outfits waiting to dance a nightclub dance sequence--in a place that is both a meat market AND a ballroom practice place. Does this make sense anywhere outside of Hollywood and to anyone besides the demographics gurus?
In the Japanese version, Sugiyama has a certain elegance compared to his classmates who serve mostly as comic relief. Their middle-aged instructor is kind and wise and exudes the joy of both dancing and teaching as she watches her three new students transform with each lesson. In the American version, the teacher has to get a sip of alcohol courage before she faces her new class of beginners. Perhaps the writers thought the Gere-Lopez storyline wasn't enough because they also add side-stories about the other students and an attraction between Susan Sarandon who plays the wife of Gere's character and the detective. In the Japanese version, Sugiyama doesn't dance the Latin dances and is replaced by Tomio because it would be too difficult for him to learn them in such a short space of time. This is one of the least convincing parts of the American version because the makers had to have a hot, steamy tango, danced by Gere as John Clark and Lopez as Paulina. Does that make any sense? Sugiyama carried himself with almost a formal air when he danced, seeming too stiff for the Latin dances. Yet the Gere character can dance tango? On the DVD, the extras include the original beginning, which actually makes more sense, and interviews with all the principals about how they felt learning to dance. Ironically, these interviews catch the true spirit lacking in the movie.
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