Movie Review: The Way We Dance/狂舞派

I’m neither a teenager not much of a fan of dancing, or hip hop, or movies about any of the three.

I am, therefore, very much outside the intended audience for  The Way We Dance/狂舞派.

I am further not often a fan of local films that are funded, either wholly or in part, by the Hong Kong Arts Development Fund.

Mostly because ofDead Slowly.

But I had heard a lot of good things about The Way We Dance/狂舞派, so I was looking forward to seeing it.

Until they did parkour.

The film opens in a tofu dessert shop (in Kowloon City), where we meet Fa (Flower), a young woman whose only desire in life is to dance.

She congratulates us for supporting Hong Kong cinema, breaking the fourth wall, as she dances through her work day.

Dancing, it is made clear, is her life’s ambition. 

To further this ambition, she enrolls in college, not to study dancing but to join the school’s dance team, BombA.

Her ambition (and skill) is such that she is invited to join the team the first day of school.

Oddly, this invitation stems not from her dancing but a display of manual dexterity.

But logic should never get in the way of a good story.

Or of any movie ever.

As someone who observed the genesis of hip hop as a cultural phenomenon, as an observer but (thankfully for so many reasons) not a participant, I have a lot of ambivalence about watching it cross cultural lines.

Six months after this film was released, none of the cast had been murdered.

I feel that way about a lot, if not most, things.

Have you ever seen The Last Dragon?

Point made.

It’s no secret that I am not the most cheerful, easygoing, non-judgmental person God ever sent down the production line.

So when I watch movies about the joy and power of youth, about faith and optimism and courage in the face of adversity, it usually just makes me feel crass, old, and irritated.

Especially when it involves a cribbed logo from an 8Os metal band. But I digress.

Though I don’t think I’m wrong for being unable to equate dancing with, say, geopolitics on the Importance Meter.

Or for not being able to blithely accept cultural appropriation.

To be honest, I was sorely tempted to get up and leave at this point.

But I’m very glad I didn’t.

After I watched this movie, I Tweeted

“THE WAY WE DANCE makes me realize what a miserable, sh*tty human I am. The best thing I could say about it is I shouldn’t talk about it.”

And that really is the truth.

The Way We Dance/狂舞派 is far from perfect, or the best movie ever made.

But within its context, as a marginal film made in a city whose entertainment industry is as stifling as it is formulaic, this movie achieves things it has no real right or reason to.

I found myself uncharacteristically forgiving of the more saccharine moments because I realized that such scenes play very differently to the intended audience than they do to bitter old men.

I would say that I love this movie’s existence more than the movie itself, if only because it provides a cinematic alternative as well as an examination and celebration of some of the city’s subcultures.

Babyjohn (!) Choi plays the older student and head of the Tai Chi club almost perfectly.

“Somos Los Tiburones!”

His dialogue was very amusing to the audience I saw the film with, especially when talking about Tai Chi.

I can only assume that his platitudes were meant to be humorous by virtue of their familiarity and/or delivery.

Cherry Ngan carries the movie admirably, her youthful enthusiasm only occasionally exceeding her already commendable acting ability.

奶粉走私褲子?

Beyond’s Paul Wong is impressive in a small role as a corrections officer and Tai Chi sifu.

Janice Fan is impressive as Rebecca, but for a much different reason.

Why has God cursed me with this obsession and why am I so grateful?

There is a notable synergy between the story and the film, and between the characters and the actors.

The overarching theme of never giving up on your dreams, and of everyday people finding their own way to recognition, carries over to the cast and crew.

This film was made possible not only by ‘arts development’ funding, but also by what had to have been a remarkable amount of persistence, drive, and self-confidence.

I’ll be honest; if my tax return had asked if I wanted some of my tax $ to help fund a film about a local college’s hip hop dancing team, my answer would not have been positive.

I really enjoyed the film’s technical flourishes, especially the occasional interplay between dialogue and background music.

The Way We Dance/狂舞派 is certainly a card-carrying youth genre film, with all the requisite plot points: doubting parents, romantic entanglements, social and psychological platitudes, and the constant hammering home the point that you should never give in to adversity.

When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.

But that is where the film succeeds most notably.

At the very moment the film should ‘jump the shark’ into maudlin, feel-good cheerleading, it instead blindsides you with a revelation that, as I tweeted, made me feel like an absolutely detestable human being.

Jesus, maybe my ex-wife was right.

The nicest thing I can say about this movie is that it deserves better than to have a professional @sshole like me talk about it.

It deserves a lot better.**** Go watch it.