In the current culture of foreign movie coverage, where 1-line blurbs can make or break your international sales appeal, Check It Out, Yo! is a good example of a movie that gets unfairly torpedoed by its own premise (not to mention title) right off the bat. That 1 line goes something like this: Three guys from Okinawa attend a concert of local rap group “Workaholic” and get so excited by the reaction of the crowd that they immediately decide to start a band of their own to impress chicks. While this idea sounds like it could quickly spiral into a stupid Hollywood-style teen sex comedy, it’s actually more of a goofy take on innocent young love and the ridiculous lengths teenagers are willing to go when every unrequited crush seems like the end of the world.

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I will preface this review by making these three things clear: I hate dancing, I hate dance clubs, and I hate movies about dancing in clubs. So when I say that I actually enjoyed “The Backdancers!” I don’t want anyone to think it’s because I’m a closet hip-hop dance fan who has “You Got Served” in my Netflix queue. Frankly it took me by surprise that a movie about a unit of backup dancers without a pop star to dance behind could possibly be fun or interesting, but “The Backdancers!” does a good job at poking fun at the whole “idol” industry without actually ever condemning it. The plot seems even more poignant now than when the movie first came out in early 2006, considering how many high-profile Jpop stars have abruptly quit companies like Upfront Agency recently, most likely leaving countless dancers, fellow unit members, and support staff in the lurch.

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It’s really weird to me that a movie starring two mega J-pop idols and one of the most popular young actresses in Japan could possibly fall out of DVD distribution for months at a time and get all but ignored in the west, but that’s exactly the case with Yukio Ninagawa’s 2003 film, The Blue Light (Ao no Hono). I always assumed this was a pretty good indication that the movie was awful, but having recently gotten my hands on a copy I now know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

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In keeping with director Minoru Kawasaki‘s running gag of injecting animals or sea life into human situations Executive Koala is, at its base, exactly what it sounds like: a koala bear working as an executive at a company. But instead of depending on that as the main joke Executive Koala purposely ignores that aspect of the character almost entirely until the latter half of the movie. People interact with him as they would any other normal person, allowing a window where Kawasaki can spoof some of the overused techniques directors tend to lean on to manufacture tension in slasher movies, murder mysteries, and thrillers. He accomplishes this to great effect, with the end result being a comedy that’s skillfully executed and, at other points, totally insane.

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Now that machine gun arms are all the rage I’m reminded that I’ve never reviewed “The Last Love Song on This Little Planet”. No, there aren’t any extended scenes of gore and senseless violence in this one. It’s not exploitational or even mildly funny in any way. In fact it’s a full-fledged romantic drama where a teenage crush is just as, if not more important than the main character having cluster bombs stored where her spleen should be.

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