Swing Girls (2004)
Ueno Juri, Hiraoka Yuta, Takenaka Naoto
Dir. Yaguchi Shinobu
Man, Japan is master of the feel-good, rags-to-riches cinematic fable. Harmless, suitable for families and silly, good fun.
Ueno is also one of those fresh faces that's totally ingratiating: it's impossible NOT to root for her and her comrades. The resolution goes beyond the realm of reality but who cares? The good guys win, the not-so-good people are swung (no pun intended) to the right side of the tracks and it turns out that the actors performed ALL the music in the movie.
Also interesting is the Northern Yamagata dialect that almost everybody in the movie drawls. I swear, it was as cute as Nacchi's Hokkaido-ben.
*** 1/2 (out of ****)