Japanese star Rinko Kikuchi returns to the Sundance Film Festival for the second time as a lead actress with the multilingual drama “Shake Your Ass!” Participated in Park City’s US Dramatic Competition.
The Tokyo-set feature, directed by Joseph Kubota Uwadika, is Kikuchi’s first to be selected for Sundance since 2014’s Kumiko the Treasure Hunter.
Kikuchi, who received an Academy Award nomination for her breakout role in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, plays Hal, a ballroom dancer who navigates desire and reinvention while dealing with the death of her husband and dance partner Luis. The role required intensive preparation, including six months of ballroom dance training, in order to convincingly portray the character’s deep connection to the art form.
“I realized that dance and Lewis were essential and everything to the character of Haru,” Kikuchi explains. “We had to make the dance as convincing as possible. The dance was very important to show the relationship between Hal and Louis.”
“Lewis was a very big part of Hal’s life, and so was dancing. It was something very important and something that gave Hal’s life a vector and a backbone. So that was something that I focused on very much,” Kikuchi added.
Wladyka’s previous credits include “Manos Sucias,” as well as episodes of Netflix’s “Narcos” and HBO’s “Tokyo Vice.” For “Haa-chan,” the director specifically rewrote the title role for Kikuchi after collaborating with him on the HBO series.
“We really worked together to make the script the best it could be,” Kikuchi says. “Joseph is a very flexible person in that respect as a director, and he created a very open environment where I could put my ideas in.”
This character was shaped by Uładyka’s personal history. His mother, now 81, has continued to compete in ballroom dancing competitions throughout her life. Kikuchi studied her photos and videos to inform her performance. “The character itself is modeled after Josef’s mother,” Kikuchi says. “Dance enriches her life. The vibrancy that comes from this character is modeled after Josef’s mother.”
The film weaves together cultural elements from Japan, Mexico, and the United States to reflect Hal and Luis’s multicultural marriage. “This couple is a multicultural couple who have a love for this very small and specific world of dance and have built a love together,” the actor explains. She draws parallels between the couple’s somewhat isolated world and Japan’s geographical insularity, suggesting that this situation strengthens their need for each other.
The cast includes Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, Yo Yoshida, YOU, and Damian Alcazar. The film is shot in English, Japanese, and Spanish.
For Kikuchi, the Sundance selection was a validation of both the filmmaking process and her first creative instincts. “The fact that someone saw this movie and decided to pick it up in this way complements the acting and the filmmaking itself, but it also highlights something about my initial instinct to jump into this project,” she says.
When asked what he hoped the audience would take away from this film, Kikuchi spoke about the universality of loss. “Losing someone very important to you is something everyone experiences in some way,” she says. “We watch Hal go through the experience of losing someone important to him and yet decide to continue living despite everything.”
Looking ahead, Kikuchi is currently rehearsing for her first theatrical production, which is scheduled to run from late January to March. She also has several film projects planned for 2026, but specific details have not yet been revealed.
CAA Media Finance is handling global sales for the project. The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 22nd to February. 1 Park City, Utah.
