‘Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!’ Review: An Exuberant and Whimsical New Spin on the Grief Drama

Sundance: Rinko Kikuchi's latest starring role finds her navigating deep emotion through a light and quirky lens. It mostly works.

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.

When we first meet Haru and Luis, they are fully settled in their life together. Her husband hails from Mexico, and their home reflects their multicultural lifestyle: they nosh on oyako-don with jalapenos on top, cozy knit sarape blankets are tossed around their modular house, and their sprawling record collection combines all their favorites. And while Haru might take their dancing a bit more seriously than Luis — forcing the pair to watch back their rehearsals on her iPad while they eat dinner — it’s clear they both love doing it, especially together.

What Haru and Luis do for work is never mentioned, instead the film (written by Kubota Wladyka and Nicholas Huynh) is much more concerned with how they live their lives, who they love, what they love, and how that all flows together. That alone is refreshing to see in a film like this, centered on a middle-aged woman (Kikuchi is 45, Haru is aged a touch up, mostly thanks to a hairstyle her family dismisses as her “fro”) and her experience with decidedly darker matters. With Luis gone, Haru sinks into a depression that spreads out over many months (energetic chapter intertitles tip us off early as to what’s coming).

Nine months in, something has to change. And it does, slowly. Kubota Wladyka and Huynh’s surprisingly economical script (the film itself clocks in at just over two hours) offers small hints as to what else has been taken from Haru: her beloved dog now lives with her steady sister Yuki (Yoh Yoshida) and her family, a birthday has passed without Haru acknowledging it, and her vibrant cousin Hiromi (YOU) has arrived from the United States for an extended visit. And she’s not dancing. Oh, and she’s also seeing a giant crow appearing everywhere (no, really, just massive, like a cuddly sports mascot landed in the middle of her living room), clearly representing Luis and her inability to let him go.

All of this is handled with a light touch, ultimately landing on a new direction for Haru’s energy: sexy new dance instructor Fedir (Alberto Guerra). That Haru is even back in the dance studio is a win, and the bonus delight of Fedir only adds to her sense that, hey, maybe this grief thing can be overcome. Or, can it? As Haru embarks on a zippy, funny, fizzy, and eventually unnerving pursuit of Fedir, it’s only natural that darker emotions continue to surface.

Many of them are beaten back by wondrous and fantastical dance sequences (Haru and Fedir at the center of all of them, a “Dirty Dancing” riff of particular pleasure), though increasingly wacky plot movements nearly derail the film and our understanding of Haru’s spirit and heart. Still, grief is messy, and Haru’s attempts to work through it (even if she doesn’t know that’s what she’s doing) are innately human. That alone recommends the film, which is not as light on its feet as it might aspire to be, and is better and richer for it.

Grade: B

“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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