A family-friendly and uniquely Japanese take on The Full Monty story, Hula Girls is a film teeming with odds defying heroism, mine accident tearjerkers and ass-shaking enthusiasm. Sure, it’s as cheesy as a Hello Kitty doll, and as predictable as an episode of Pokémon, but it’s undeniably fun. Lee Sang-il’s fifth feature-film, based loosely on a true story, transports us to Joban – a bleak coal mining town in Northeast Japan – circa 1965. With the mine facing heavy job losses and eventual closure, the coal company’s unlikely solution is to build a Hawaiian-themed tourist centre, complete with hot springs, giant palms and a troupe of hula dancers. Of course, Joban’s hardened mining community is resistant to the idea. This doesn’t deter a couple of teenagers (including rising Japanese star Yû Aoi), a bored-house wife and a girl who might possibly be a boy, from volunteering to join the dance troupe. Naturally, the girls are hopeless at the hula – until a former big shot Tokyo dancer is drafted in to work her magic. When dance instructor Madoka (played by Yasuko Matsuyuki) first arrives, her heart is as cold the mining town (her bitter past is curiously never explained), but she soon warms to the girl’s never-say-die attitude. Cue the training montage and you know before too long these hula girls will win the town the over – but not without a bucket full of shed tears along the way. That you can see the film’s climax from a mile-off doesn’t make it any less satisfying when it finally explodes off the screen in a blaze of swinging grass skirts.—Caleb Starrenburg