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Ambitious dance dramedy Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! makes moves, not all of them smooth

Rinko Kikuchi returns to Western film with a sensitive yet uneven dance about getting one's groove back.

By Monica Castillo  |  September 24, 2026 | 2:00pm
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics
Film Reviews Rinko Kikuchi
Ambitious dance dramedy Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! makes moves, not all of them smooth

Josef Kubota Wladyka’s ballroom dramedy Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is a charming, ambitious, and whimsical meditation of grief that takes wild swings, some of which are quite endearing, but not all land as smoothly as the dancers running through their rumba routines. Despite its jarring stylistic distractions, at the movie’s core, there’s a genuine feel-good story, a real love of ballroom dancing, and great performances from its ensemble cast.

Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) and her husband Luis (Alejandro Edda) are a match made on the dance floor. They watch performance videos over dinner, help each other get out the door on the day of a competition, and when Haru doubts herself, Luis is there to comfort her. Unfortunately, this will be their last dance together, as Luis suddenly dies in the middle of their routine. Waylaid by grief, Haru retreats from dance until her friends Yuki (Yoh Yoshida) and Hiromi (You) coax her to return to the studio with a new instructor, the dashing Fedir (Alberto Guerra). Haru reemerges from her grief through dance, but now must cope with her overwhelming crush on her new teacher. 

A tribute to Wladyka’s own ballroom-dancing mother, Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is filled with a love of the form, its community, and their quirkiness, which coalesces around so many Swarovski crystals and cans of hairspray. The film also bottles the sensations and experience of ballroom dancing, beautifully capturing the elation of moving so closely with someone that it feels like the world around you fades, leaving you and your partner dancing alone in your own bubble. It recreates the Fred-and-Ginger-like feeling of floating above the ground—when the dancing is so good, you won’t land until the music stops. It also relishes in the sheer energy of a busy dance floor, the intensity of practicing a paso doble or of a salsa floor full of twirling dancers. Wladyka even adds dream sequences so that there’s more dance scenes in the movie; even if their additions, like a street scuffle that turns into an elaborate bachata routine, are a bit silly, they speak to Haru’s love of dance. Overall, these moments are so joyous, that whenever something interrupts the film’s groove, it’s as rude as someone cutting in to steal your dance partner. 

Wladyka, who co-wrote the script with Nicholas Huynh, makes some calculated moves that take Ha-Chan away from typical ballroom movie beats for something more eccentric. Haru’s dead husband Luis returns to her in the form of a Japanese-mascot-looking black bird (or is it a raven?). He occasionally regains his human form, but mostly appears in this silly costume, which can seem weirdly sweet but also undercuts what Haru’s going through emotionally, trying to lighten the seriousness of her grief with ill-fitting whimsy. It’s perhaps taking the phrase “grief is the thing with feathers” a bit too literally, and becomes a surreal, goofy recurring motif. As Haru starts to crush harder on her teacher, the mascot appears hurt or ominously jealous. 

But in what is perhaps the most distracting addition, Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is broken into chapters that loudly chop up the flow of events with colorful title cards, with a sonorous voiceover in English and a chirpy version read in Japanese. As the audience is lulled into Haru’s problems, these chapters don’t just announce the start of something new, they’re jarring interruptions telegraphing the change, smothering any kind of mystery. 

Throughout these uneven highs and lows of the film, Kikuchi remains steadfast, taking on the challenges of playing an aspiring ballroom student who’s coping with grief and trying to embrace a new sexual freedom in her widowhood. She’s disarmingly quick as Haru, answering Fedir’s questions and opening herself up to the opportunities he offers her on and off the dance floor. However, she’s still vulnerable, and quickly in over her head when her feelings overwhelm her. Wladyka pushes her character to an obsessive place that’s less appealing, but Kikuchi’s performance bounces back with heartfelt acuity, never missing a step from all that her character is going through. Her dance partners, Edda and Guerra, are genuinely charming and lead their star smoothly to where she’s going next. 

Despite its stylistic missteps, Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! Is ultimately endearing in its passion and showmanship. Wladyka’s recreation of the joy of dancing is so heartfelt and subtle, it can get lost next to the risks he takes to explore Haru’s grief. But the movie is about how Haru gets her groove back, and Kikuchi’s stellar performance hits every mark. She’s reserved, but not always; she’s eager to fall in love again, but not quite ready to let go. It is in those uncertain moments that Haru learns to take her first steps to move on.

Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka
Writer:Josef Kubota Wladyka, Nicholas Huynh
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi, Alejandro Edda, Alberto Guerra, Yoh Yoshida, You, Damián Alcázar
Release date: September 25, 2026

 
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