Fancy Dance

Suo escaped from the purgatory of doing 'Making of...' documentaries for the appalling Juzo Itami into the relative bliss of this evident prototype for Shall We Dance? Successful punk-rock vocalist Yohei (Motoki) happens to come from a long line of Buddhist priests and is expected to serve a year as a novice monk. He reluctantly submits, shaving the half of his head which wasn't already shaved, and resigns himself to a life of asceticism and discipline in a mountain temple. But he and three fellow novices soon learn that some monks are more equal than others. The gay almoner monk secretly hoards chocolates and the disciplinarian monk likes to don a wig and hit karaoke bars. And then Yohei's girlfriend (Suzuki) shows up. The mix of belly laughs, slapstick, sex jokes and satire pushes towards a predictably serene, spiritual conclusion.