10DANCE (2025)

10 Dance explores dance as an emotional language, pairing two rival dancers whose opposing styles reflect their inner emptiness and desire to connect. As ambition and forbidden feelings blur the line between competition and intimacy, their pursuit of perfection demands both technical and emotional sacrifice. Though rich in theme and rhythm, the film stumbles in execution, leaving its powerful ideas slightly short of a truly resonant finale.

Read the full review here: (Indonesian version : alunauwie.com) and (English version : uwiepuspita.com)

For me, this was a bit of a disappointment. It was a Japanese production, but most of it was set outside of Japan, so the cultural aspect that you expect really wasn't there. Then there's the story; you have two strong male dancers, one in Latin Music and one in Ballroom and they decide to train together to compete in a competition where you have to do both types of dance. Spoiler: Most of the movie was centered around training and it ends before you get to the actual competition. Then there are the characters, nothing against the actors, but the story, romance and purpose just really felt forced. The one character has no depth, and when they tried to write that in, it just felt flat. The chemistry between them was just not there and then they forced it for the story. It really didn't come across as passion where they were both aligned. One had passion for the dance, but not believably for the other guy; and the other guy was just the opposite, where his passion for the dance seemed lacking. Yes, they danced well and there was a scene at the end where they danced together, and I've read some rave reviews about that; and while I did enjoy that part, I don't think it was all that moving. For a movie about dancing, it had a very slow tempo and a lack of any real passion with a romance that felt tacked on to fill in space where they could fit it in.

This film has a little of the intensity of "Kokohu" (2025) to it as the recent runner-up at the World Ballroom Championships - "Sugiki" (Keita Machida) offers to teach his accomplished Latin rival "Suzuki" (Ryoma Takeuchi) some of the more nuanced techniques of dancing that he admits he doesn't yet possess - all so that one of them can win the notoriously difficult 10 dance competition - an event that features everything from the Viennese Waltz to the Rumba. The two men are opposites incarnate. The former is a debonaire, stylish and measured individual whilst the latter, with blonde streaks in his hair, lives his life in a much faster and more relaxed fashion. Indeed, right from the beginning of their association, you wouldn't put much money on it delivering anything at all. The thing is, though, that as the pair begin to dance together the nature of the relationships between not just them but with their female partners too, slowly begins to shift and that changing dynamic serves to ask both men about themselves and what truly motivates them. This is a film about an increasingly intimate power-play between two men, and both actors deliver quite emotionally-charged performances but using largely different, yet complementary, methods. Moreover, we also discover something of the discipline required to dance like they do: the sheer muscular strength, the breathing, the balance and ultimately the ability to convince those watching (and judging) that there is some chemistry between those participating. It's like watching some ritual mating scenes between puffed-up birds, elegantly and meticulously posing with precise postures but never quite sealing the deal - as it were. Yes, there are elements here that are predicable, but they are applied in more roundabout routes and at no stage did I actually feel that I knew just what was going to happen by the time they got to the Asian Cup at the end. It isn't so unusual to see a film that's on the surface about male love and romance but this goes a little deeper and becomes more about precision, trust and power and with quite some effort gone into the production and the soundtrack, it's well worth a look.