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Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version) Blu-ray Region All

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Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
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All Editions Rating: Customer Review Rated Bad 8 - 8.8 out of 10 (13)
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YesAsia Editorial Description

Get ready to swing! From the makers of Shall We Dance? and Waterboys comes Swing Girls, an inspirational zero-to-hero tale about a group of girls who find their rhythm - and then some! Tomoko (Ueno Juri) leads a group of bored girls stuck in remedial summer math class, who decide to ditch their boring teacher (Takenaka Naoto) to deliver lunches to the school brass band.

But the girls' extreme laziness causes the lunches to spoil, and soon nearly the entire brass band gets sick. The remaining member is Takuo (Hiraoka Yuto), who recruits Tomoko's classmate Sekiguchi (Motokariya Yuika) into the band, even though Sekiguchi's musical talents are entirely in question. But Tomoko and the other girls soon follow, partly to get out of math class, and partly because it's their fault that the entire band got sick in the first place! But there's a catch: nobody knows how to play a wind or brass instrument, much to the dismay of Takuo, who proposes that the girls play swing band jazz - and take their act all the way to a battle-of-the-bands finale! Will the girls find a way to swing like tested jazz musicians, or will they discover that maybe math isn't so bad?

Directed by Yaguchi Shinobu (Waterboys), Swing Girls struck a chord with audiences thanks to its feel-good emotions and energetic cast of young girls, and ranked eighth at the Japanese box office for 2004. Like the characters they play, many of the actors were strangers to their instruments when filming began, and learned to play as filming went on! Full of humor, heart, and more than a little satisfying irreverence, Swing Girls is a toe-tapping, crowd-pleasing good time at the movies!

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Technical Information

Product Title: Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version) Swing Girls 喇叭書院 (Blu-ray) (英文字幕) (日本版) Swing Girls 喇叭书院 (Blu-ray) (英文字幕) (日本版) スウィングガールズ 【Blu-rayDisc】 Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)
Artist Name(s): Takenaka Naoto | Shiraishi Miho | Tani Kei | Kohinata Fumiyo | Watanabe Eriko | Ueno Juri | Motokariya Yuika | Kanjiya Shihori | Hiraoka Yuta | Toyoshima Yukari 竹中直人 | 白石美帆 | 谷啟 | 小日向文世 | Watanabe Eriko | 上野樹里 | Motokariya Yuika | 貫地谷栞 | 平岡祐太 | 豊島由佳梨 竹中直人 | 白石美帆 | 谷启 | 小日向文世 | Watanabe Eriko | 上野树里 | Motokariya Yuika | 贯地谷栞 | 平冈佑太 | 豊岛由佳梨 竹中直人 | 白石美帆 | 谷啓 | 小日向文世 | 渡辺えり子 | 上野樹里 | 本仮屋ユイカ | 貫地谷しほり | 平岡祐太 | 豊島由佳梨 Takenaka Naoto | Shiraishi Miho | Tani Kei | Kohinata Fumiyo | Watanabe Eriko | Ueno Juri | Motokariya Yuika | Kanjiya Shihori | Hiraoka Yuta | Toyoshima Yukari
Director: Yaguchi Shinobu 矢口史靖 矢口史靖 矢口史靖 Yaguchi Shinobu
Blu-ray Region Code: All Region What is it?
Release Date: 2008-10-24
Publisher Product Code: TBR-18333D
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English, Japanese
Place of Origin: Japan
Disc Format(s): Blu-ray
Publisher: Altamira Pictures
Other Information: Blu-ray Disc
Shipment Unit: 1 What is it?
YesAsia Catalog No.: 1011401296

Product Information

タイトル:スウィングガールズ: 【Blu-rayDisc】
出演:上野樹里/貫地谷しほり/本仮屋ユイカ/豊島由佳梨/平岡祐太/竹中直人/白石美帆/小日向文世/渡辺えり子/谷啓
監督:矢口史靖(監督)/矢口史靖(脚本)

東北の片田舎の高校。夏休みだというのに補習を受けている女子生徒達が、サボる口実でビッグバンドに参加。はじめは全くやる気ゼロだったのに、いつしかビッグバンドジャズの魅力に引き込まれ、自分たちだけでバンド結成を決意!とはいえ楽器はない、お金もない、練習場所もない…。果たして、前途多難のガールズに、ビッグバンドジャズなんてできるのか!?  

映像特典:TVスポット/ハッピーフライト 特報/特報/予告

テクニカル・インフォメーション
:カラー
画面:Vista
言語/音声:日本語:リニアPCM5.1chサラウンド

その他の情報
製作年:2004
備考:1枚組
封入特典:オールカラーブックレット/映像特典:「スウィングガールズ」特報・予告・TVスポット、「ハッピーフライト」特報
日本小売価格:¥4700

Additional Information may be provided by the manufacturer, supplier, or a third party, and may be in its original language

Other Versions of "Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)"

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YumCha! Asian Entertainment Reviews and Features

Professional Review of "Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)"

October 8, 2007

This professional review refers to Swing Girls Standard Edition (Japan Version - English Subtitles)
From the makers of Shall We Dance and Waterboys comes Swing Girls, a feel-good comedy about a bunch of girls who form a group to perform big band jazz. That's it. Forget big emotional clinches, family issues, or even any real teen romance; this is a movie about girls who play the sax, trombone, trumpet, and assorted other instruments that you might remember from high school. Very little else happens in Swing Girls besides the girls picking up the instruments and learning how to play them. Most of the girls are types, some are barely glimpsed, and yet everyone bands together to perform some inspirational jazz in a loaded "battle of the bands" finale. Does this sound like a good movie? Well, formula be damned, it is a good movie!

Juri Ueno stars as Tomoko, a sometimes mouthy, but wholly average high schooler stuck in remedial math for the summer. Tomoko and her pals are given the chance to escape class (taught by Naoto Takenaka of Shall We Dance and Waterboys) to deliver lunches to the school's brass band, currently playing at an important away game for the school's baseball team. Unfortunately, fate—or the lazy, self-involved antics of teen girls—throws the band a curve ball; the girls are late delivering the lunches, which all spoil thanks to the heat. All 40-plus members of the band get hospitalized, leaving only dorky Takuo (Yuta Hiraoka) unscathed—and he was looking to quit anyway! The school still needs a band, so Takuo corrals Tomoko and her pals as replacements. There are only sixteen of them, which is too few for a regular brass band, but perfect for a big band. Presto, the Swing Girls (and a boy) are born!

Swing Girls is not a complex film. Aside from having a completely simplistic narrative, each of the starring girls is a defined type. Tomoko is the aimless leader of the bunch, who discovers something worth caring about—namely jazz. Pal Yoshie (Shihori Kanjiya) is boy-crazy, while beefy Naomi (Yukari Toyoshima) is given to open-mouthed stares and concern over her weight. Sekiguchi (Yuika Motokariya) is the amusingly shy one of the bunch, but her character charms thanks to her apparent natural talent for music. The motley bunch stinks it up initially, but perseverance—and the magic of time dissolves—allows them to improve rather quickly. Soon they're charming locals and audiences, and you'll likely be charmed too. How did they do that, anyway? The answer: with astoundingly keen commercial instincts and a welcome absence of guile. The road seems insurmountable: many of the girls are barely developed, the filmmakers take easy shortcuts to get the girls on the same page, plus they manage to leave nearly all their subplots hanging, and there's really no closure. However, closure and verbalized epiphanies are not necessary for Swing Girls. One reason is the film's droll, deadpan sense of humor, which manages to be funny without becoming cloying—even when slapstick gets invoked. The world of Swing Girls is deadpan hyper-realistic, in that everyone is off-kilter and a little bizarre, but not so much that they cease to be familiar. Plus, nobody in the film is ever made out to be more important than the "Girls Meet Jazz" hook. For an inconsequential fluff-fest Swing Girls possesses a deceptively tight focus.

The girls also go through an actual process of learning jazz onscreen, which proves both interesting and even infectious. The girls may sound terrible at first, but they slowly learn how to be real band members, and when they finally discover their rhythm, it manages to be a revelation to both the girls and the audience. The girls find jazz in everyday life, and the even though it's hard to buy their quick ultra-improvement as musicians, the moment is felt. The audience gets to share in the girls' minor growth and discovery, and that the director can convey that is half of the film's charm. Then there's the big kicker: the girls really went from clueless beginners to impressive intermediates. Swing Girls is a true story. Kind of. The film was based on an actual girls' jazz band, but the official press for Swing Girls explains that the young actresses actually played their own instruments, and all were complete novices when filming began, just like the characters they play. It's always charming to watch a bunch of nobodies go from zero to hero, and the fact that this happened in the film and behind the scenes is enough to make the film's faults fall neatly by the wayside. Swing Girls possesses simplistic narrative devices and less tension than a snail race, yet the whole manages to entertain and charm on the purest of levels—such that the film's lack of closure seems to be delivering a message. It doesn't matter if you win, lose, lie, cheat, attain love, or measure up to your seemingly-superior peers. All you need to do is swing. By the time the girls are able to perform in front of an audience, it doesn't even matter if they are perfect, because the simple fact that they do it is more than enough. The Swing Girls themselves may not hit all the right notes, but this movie does.

By Kozo - LoveHKFilm.com

Feature articles that mention "Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)"

This original content has been created by or licensed to YesAsia.com, and cannot be copied or republished in any medium without the express written permission of YesAsia.com.

Customer Review of "Swing Girls (Blu-ray) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)"

Average Customer Rating for All Editions of this Product: Customer Review Rated Bad 8 - 8.8 out of 10 (13)

Kevin Kennedy
See all my reviews


May 9, 2010

This customer review refers to Swing Girls (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
1 people found this review helpful

These girls really do swing! Customer Review Rated Bad 8 - 8 out of 10
In "Swing Girls", a group of listless high school girls is suffering through a summer school math class when they notice that the delivery man bearing the school band's bento lunches has arrived to late to meet the band before they departed to play at a baseball game. Seeing an opportunity to skip school, the girls volunteer to take the lunches to the distant stadium. Their journey to the stadium, however, turns into a comedy of errors and leads to them delivering the lunches very late. So late, in fact, that the lunches have gone bad and all but one of the band members come down with food poisoning. As a penalty, the girls are asked to perform in place of the sick band at the next baseball game. But there's one big problem: None of the girls can play a musical instrument.

The band's lone misfit, who survived the food poisoning unscathed because all of the bentos were taken by the other band members, is tasked with turning these loser girls into a musical group capable of playing at the game. The task seems impossible, but just before the girls embarrass themselves by being forced to play in public, the ailing band recovers and returns to play at the game. The math class girls first have a sense of relief that they need not play at the game, but some of them realize that they had found a sense of purpose in their attempt to become a swing band. They are drawn by that sense of purpose back to their musical instruments and back to each other to truly seek to make music together.

The result is a warm-hearted, effervescent delight, which culminates in a performance of classic swing music that will have everyone's toes tapping. There are a couple story elements that strain credulity and a subplot or two that don't add much to the film, but "Swing Girls" tells its tale with such good-natured zeal that I found it richly enjoyable. Recommended for the whole family.
Did you find this review helpful? Yes (Report This)
Amy
See all my reviews


September 27, 2008

This customer review refers to Swing Girls (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
HK version doesn't subtitle features Customer Review Rated Bad 6 - 6 out of 10
I really like this movie, and I would give it 4 stars as a film, but it was my surprise to find that the only extra on the dvd - Making of Swing Girls - is not subbed... not even in Chinese. If I bought the Hong Kong version was because I needed subtitles, and I figured that since Japanese is not an official language there, that I would get subs.
Did you find this review helpful? Yes (Report This)
inka
See all my reviews


February 24, 2006

This customer review refers to Swing Girls (VCD) (Hong Kong Version)
100% feel good movie Customer Review Rated Bad 9 - 9 out of 10
one of the best!!
if u are looking for a feel good movie, this is the one!
there is a very postive message in the movie!
a must see!
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Mika
See all my reviews


January 19, 2006

This customer review refers to Swing Girls Standard Edition (Japan Version - English Subtitles)
1 people found this review helpful

just an OK movie Customer Review Rated Bad 7 - 7 out of 10
I thought this movie was pretty funny, but a lot of parts didnt make sense like when the other girls joined the band and knew all the songs.....some parts were lagging but over all it was OK...Its pretty easy for one to follow if you dont really know japanese but dont compare it to a Hollywood movie.
Did you find this review helpful? Yes (Report This)
inka
See all my reviews


January 6, 2006

This customer review refers to Swing Girls (VCD) (Hong Kong Version)
1 people found this review helpful

100% feel good Customer Review Rated Bad 10 - 10 out of 10
what a great feel good movie!
just like what i have expected! good value!!
and a very positive message! love it!
Did you find this review helpful? Yes (Report This)

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