Fancy Dance

Popular punk rock singer Yohei (Masahiro Motoki, Departures) agrees to become a Buddhist monk for a year in order to inherit his family's lucrative temple. With his head fully shaved he leaves behind his aggressive girlfriend and other worldly desires for an ascetic lifestyle in the countryside. There, he is teamed up with a quirky cast of characters, including his younger brother, who becomes a monastic heartthrob of the fanatical high school girls nearby. While life is hard at first with endless duties and harassment by the higher-ups, pretty soon Yohei discovers that even the senior monks have found ways to buck the system. Some of the nefarious activities of the novice and seasoned monks include dating a woman on the sly, cavorting at hostess bars outside campus grounds, hording candies and other secular antics. When Yohei's estranged girlfriend comes to drag him back to secular life he finds himself at a crossroads. The sophomore feature by Masayuki Suo (Shall We Dance?) is a sublime hangout comedy whose "mix of belly laughs, slapstick, sex jokes and satire pushes towards a predictably serene, spiritual conclusion" (Time Out).