Film

It’s 1965 and a village of miners faces ruination as Japan’s economy shifts from coal to oil. Already raging against the corporation that’s laying them off, the workers are doubly incensed by the announcement of a plan to turn the sooty little company town into a Hawaiian-themed tourist resort. Alone among the villagers to embrace the scheme are a handful of teenage girls who see hula dancing as an attractive alternative to sorting chunks of coal underground.

Defying their elders, who equate the dance with striptease, the coal miners’ daughters submit to the discipline of a dance teacher from Tokyo (Matsuyuki). Initially disdainful of her unsophisticated pupils, the teacher warms to them as they absorb her passion for dance.

A chaste mash-up of Flashdance and Brassed Off, Hula is as cute and diverting as it is devoid of surprises (barring the revelation that bickering teenage girls in Japan call each other “numbnuts,” which could well be a translation error). The girls are sweet, the dancing is lovely, and, like all the best heaps of clichés, it’s “based on a true story.”