Hula Girls (Hura garu) (NR)

synopsis

It is 1965 and in Japan, the country has started to shift from coal to oil. One by one the old mining towns begin their long slow decline, but for one small town way up north, one man's vision is to build Japan's first Hawaiian Village as a way to save the town. But what's a Hawaiian Village without a troupe of Hula dancers? The only problem is that no one knows how to do the dance, or even knows what the Hula is! The skepticism and conservatism of the locals is gradually overcome as their daughters fall under the spell of one talented and determined dance instructor from the big city of Tokyo. The coal miners' daughters take a once-in-a-lifetime chance to escape their monotonous lives and become unwitting heroes to their depressed mining town as well as the whole of Japan.