Bura bura ban ban (2008)

This is a film about a group of high schoolers in Japan that decide to re-start a brass band in school, after it was halted due to lack of interest. My immediate thought was this was another "Swing Girls", but it not even close. The very pretty Japanese pop singer Beni Arishiro stars as Seryu, an enigmatic horn player who has sensuous reactions when someone plays their horn well around her. She loses herself (and in the first competition, acting as conductor, loses her gown on stage-you don't see anything) and it causes a few members of the band to resent her. Shirabase, the young man who first heard her play, is determined to keep the band together for the all important regional competition. The film is nothing special but it held my interest. Ms. Arishiro is not a bad actress, but her role is not very challenging. If you think you'd like Japanese pop music, as Beni sometimes sings in English (she is fluent in both languages, she is Amerasian), you can do a lot worse than buy one of her cd's. This film is not as good as "Swing Girls", which had more character development, but it is a decent film that won't let you down.