108 minutes, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles
Directed by: Lee Sang-Il
Starring: Yu Aoi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Etsushi Toyokawa

Watch [the trailer] on YouTube.
website: www.hulagirls-movie.com

Showtimes: SUN June 24, 8:30pm at the IFC Center - SOLD OUT!
MON July 2, 7:00pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets].
Note: "Buy Tickets" links will take you to the IFC Center website (for shows at IFC Center) and to Japan Society website (for shows at Japan Society). Tickets for each venue must be purchased separately.

Iwaki is a remote mining town in northern Japan that would be right at home in America’s rust belt, and with its coal mine closing, its future looks grim. In a desperate attempt to save the local economy the town elders decide to cash in on the Polynesian craze that’s sweeping the world (the movie is set in 1965) and so they announce they’re building a Hawaiian theme park, complete with a hula dancing troupe. The only problem: no one in Iwaki knows how to dance the hula. Also: no one in Iwaki has ever been to Hawaii. Actually, no one in Iwaki has ever really left the city limits. And once they import an alcoholic hula teacher from Tokyo who’s on the run from bad debts, things get worse as the respectable local women refuse to participate in “indecent” hula dancing and the only people who sign up for the classes are a handful of misfits.

Do these kids get it together and become a crack hula team? You bet! Korean-Japanese director Lee Sang-Il (Scrap Heaven) rewrites the conventions
of the "team of underdog" genre (see: The Full Monty) and reminds us of why
they worked in the first place. The movie's secret weapon is Yu Aoi in the
lead role as a teenager whose parents disapprove of her dancing. She's a
veteran of Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou Chou and Hana & Alice, and she
lights up the screen like a 1000 watt bulb every time she appears. It¹s not
hard to see why this flick rocked the Japanese box office and swept the
Japanese Academy Awards: it's managed the neat trick of telling an old story
in a new way and reminding its audience that there's nothing to be ashamed
of if you come out of a movie feeling good about life and wanting to put on
a lei and a tapa and swing your hips to a hula mele.