Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!

A powerful and imaginative celebration of life that premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo's ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor.

Review from IndieWire

Haru (Rinko Kikuchi, always a delight to see on the big screen) is already prone to fantasy long before the harsh realities of life come calling for her. Consider how it feels when she’s partaking in her favorite pastime, ballroom dancing. When Haru (and her beloved husband Luis, played by Alejandro Edda) hit the dance floor during a local competition in her native Tokyo, she imagines the pair taking to the sky, literally dancing above and beyond everyone else.

And so, Haru is in a world of her own when the real one comes crashing in (and, in the space of her sky-high fantasy, crashing down), taking both Luis and her passion for dancing from her in a split second. What follows is a grief drama of a different kind, one part melodrama, one part soap opera, all of it original and with a deceptively light touch. It might not all flow in perfect step (insert ballroom dancing metaphors here), but “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” offers an effervescent spirit so often missing in this milieu, with a lovely performance from Kikuchi at its center.

It’s a sharp turn from filmmaker Josef Kubota Wladyka‘s last film, the hard-hitting boxing drama “Catch the Fair One,” but the warmth the filmmaker offers to both Ha-chan the character and “Ha-Chan” the film stems from a place of true affection: it’s dedicated to his own mother. While the film is not entirely based on her own life, it’s meant to nod to her own vivacious spirit (and love of ballroom dancing), which the filmmaker refers to throughout the film’s official press notes. She sounds like a wonderful lady. So too is Haru.

Read the rest of the review from Kate Erbland here...