Friday, November 14, 2008

Dance with The Wind

Another ballroom dance theme movie. And this time it's the Korean who made it. However, unlike its predecessors, Dance with The Wind tells a different storyline but with the same passion, the passion for dance.
In Korea, apparently ballroom dancing, unlike the Western counterparts, is identified as the dance that people do in bars which is involving naughty housewives and gigolos. So, it's a bit difficult for a man who really genuinely have the love to dance to express his passion, and he most of the time was being misunderstood as a gigolo, which he very much despised. The story ends with a heartwarming ending, and his search for
the dance that he's been wanting to have finally ended. This movie will leave you to ponder how far will you willing to go to pursue your passion, which in this case was done quite extreme.
Speaking of ballroom dancing theme movies, the hype was actually started by the Japanese with the title 'Shall We Dance?' which was released in 1996. The movie tells a story of how a man's life change after he discover the ballroom dancing. The boring life of salary man, which full of routine activities between work and family, makes him wonder of what's the meaning of his life. And he discover it with ballroom dancing. In Japan, where ballroom dancing is not really perceived as a man's sport, people are quite reluctant to admit to expressing themselves through this type of dancing. So the breakthrough that the main character have with ballroom dancing certainly emphasis the 'dare to be different' to obtain his own happiness. After all, everybody has the right to express their passions, as long as it doesn't hurt other people, off course.
So, with the success story of the Japanese counterpart, off course Hollywood would want to join the wagon. Thus, they make the remake (they're seems to be good at it now) in 2004 with the same movie title. Hollywood is not Hollywood if they don't throw in the big stars name in a remake movie. So they cast in Richard Gere as the salary man and Jennifer Lopez as the dance instructor. Although it's also a good movie, something is missing when you compare it with the Japanese version. My guess is because in Western culture, ballroom dancing is not a 'taboo'. People embrace dancing and the American salary man here doesn't have so much dilemma about his passion as what the Japanese salary man has.
In the end, it's all a good movies with the same message, pursuing your passion is liberating and give you the new meaning of life. What's better than enjoying life doing something you like?

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