Swing Girls (2004)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A bunch of lazy and unmotivated schoolgirls are thrown into the extracurricular music club of their school and not exactly voluntarily. They are trying to cut out the hard stuff - yes, mathematics - and become the replacement crew for the actual musicians in the school club, but slowly come into their own as they learn to handle the instruments and themselves better. Craziness and zaniness ensues, but how is the swing music delivery at the end?
- Actors:
- Juri Ueno, Yûta Hiraoka, Shihori Kanjiya, Yuika Motokariya, Yukari Toyoshima, Kana Sekine, Fumiko Mizuta, Asuka Yamaguchi, Chise Nakamura, Masae Nemoto, Madoka Matsuda, Mutsumi Kanazaki, Nagisa Abe, Misa Nagashima, Eri Maehara, Natsuki Nakazawa, Natsuko Tatsumi, Miho Shiraishi, Naoto Takenaka, Yu Tokui
- Directors:
- Shinobu Yaguchi
- Producers:
- Shintarô Horikawa, Daisuke Sekiguchi
- Writers:
- Shinobu Yaguchi, Junko Yaguchi
- Aka:
- Suwingu gâruzu
- Genres:
- Comedy, Drama
- Countries:
- Japan
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Reviews (1) of Swing Girls
Exploring Other Interests - Swing Girls review by griggs
I tried to learn the trumpet at school and lasted three lessons before it was suggested I “explore other interests.” So I feel a deep kinship with these gloriously useless schoolgirls stumbling their way into jazz. Shinobu Yaguchi made a film that nails the specific, ridiculous thrill of being terrible at something and then, almost by accident, becoming not terrible.
Everything is exaggerated to the nth degree — the incompetence, the mishaps, the sheer chaos of it all — and the film is so much better for it. The ensemble cast is having such a good time that you can’t help but get swept along with them, and Yaguchi never lets the slapstick curdle into smugness. There’s a quiet thread running through it all about finding purpose where you least expect to, and he trusts the audience enough not to underline it.
That final performance is a belter. You know it’s coming, you know exactly how it’ll land, and it still gets you. Brilliant stuff.