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The story is about a group of Japanese High Schoolers coming together to participate in cheerleading competition in the US and the process, the struggles, the challenges they had to go through to get there. The movie is in theory just another cheerleading film, one who happens to take place in Japan. There's nothing new about that but Japan doesn't have a long-standing tradition in cheerleading when compared to the US the Japanese culture is very different from the Western Culture in the broad sense of the expression, not the literal one, therefore it's inspiring. It shows that determination and hard-work can make dreams come true but that's not something new either.
The acting was good, nothing exceptional but good as was the music to put it simply.
Overall it was a nice comedy, light, breezy, fluffy and entertaining!
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In some places/countries, cheer dancing isn't that much popular among the people. But in this movie, they showed the Fukui Commercial High School of Japan do it gracefully. Some characters had their own ups and downs but they still made it. Some finally achieved their dreams.
The final cheer dance piece was something I can re-watch n number of times. It was beautiful.
At the last part, I was teary eyed but those were tears of happiness. This movie was definitely worth the 2 hours.
I want to write so much more but I don't know how to put my feelings regarding this movie in words. It was that that good.
If you haven't watched the movie then go watch it !!!!!!!
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Easy Watch for a Believe In Yourself Sports Movie
LIKES:Cinematography, production, choice of cast, colour palate, scene locations, were all well done.
MUSIC for the Japanese cheer team was decent, but nothing memorable.
STORY: Based on a true story, which was nice because I didn’t know prior to watching this that Japan had any form of cheer competitions.
COSTUMES: I liked the Japanese cheer costumes, especially for the JETS.
CONCEPT: Youth sports and dancing, high school pressures, friendships, were all well delivered.
DISLIKES:
MUSIC: They used Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) song to depict the American cheer championships. So many other songs could’ve done the same.
DIRECTING & EDITING: a lot of moments too drawn out, pacing became an issue. Some parts were really choppy.
STORY: They didn’t need the boy crush angle between Mackenyu’s character and Suzu’s character or Ayami and Kentaro. Also it wasn’t a comedy, although there were some light hearted moments. Based on a true story, but even with 2 hours it mostly focused on training and not really the competition, so the end wasn’t as impactful. There was no adult version conclusion for some of the supporting, first string girls like Taeko or Yui, they only showed the future selves of Hikari and Ayano. That was frustrating because they did give some back story of Taeko.
OVERALL:
Easy and light watch, even though it was 2 hrs. I did tear up near the end. I would recommend watching it, however there’s nothing so appealing that I would want or need to watch it again.
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