In 1996's Japanese sleeper hit Shall We Dance?, Koji Yakusho stars as a repressed-unto-invisibility salaryman who blooms when he begins taking dance classes on a whim. The film's commercial success seemed attributable to its broad humor and crowd-pleasing embrace of formula, but its creative success came from its grasp on the subtleties of self-denial and introversion, as well as its command of the small details that signal a life of quiet desperation. Peter Chelsom's brassy new American remake doesn't just retain the earlier movie's crowd-pleasing aspects; it pumps them full of steroids while chucking all that unsexy subtlety. In the process, Chelsom has transformed a low-key charmer into an overblown shtick-com whose idea of restraint only extends to forgoing wacky sound effects, a laugh track, and amplified rim-shots every time a character delivers a wisecrack.
