This sensation also apparently transcends cultures. Shall We Dance?, an exuberant, lovable, little crowd-pleaser of a romantic comedy, concerns a timid, overworked businessman, Mr. Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho), who's lured to a dance studio by the pretty girl he spies from his train window each night. Everything in Sugiyama's life tells him he should leave the studio: Not only is ballroom dancing considered disreputable in Japan--outside of competition, natch--but it also requires stumbling through humiliating introductory lessons. Nevertheless, unbeknownst to his wife and daughter, he purchases a pair of dance shoes and begins a secret life as a waltzing fool.

Most of the movie takes place in or around the dance class, which writer-director Masayuki Suo fills with a stand-in for every member of the audience--most memorably the bald, high-strung accountant Aoki (Naoto Takeneka), who becomes a long-haired Latin lover on the dance floor. What makes Shall We Dance? so irresistible is the way we get to see what dancing means to each of these people, and how it transforms them. As in great pop movies like Dirty Dancing and Saturday Night Fever, the dance floor is the place where people forget social pressure and saving face to shake off their inhibitions. The dance numbers themselves are luxuriously photographed, with none of that damnable Flashdance editing that chops dancers into disconnected body parts. The director treats the wide screen as a dance floor, and he gives everyone room to cut loose.

Four on the floor Reiko Kusamura, Yu Tokui, Hiromasa Taguchi, and Koji Yakusyo (l.-r.) in Shall We Dance?