Waterboys (2001, Japan)
It's springtime in Japan and the Tadano High School swimming team is barely keeping afloat. It's time to think what events are going to be included in the festival later. A young trainer arrives with the idea of creating a top synchronized swimming team of her own. Unfortunately she didn't realise that it's an all-boys school. And the five boys who volunteered are terrible swimmers. And she herself is eight months pregnant and due for maternity leave.
Well, against all the odds the boys decide to go it alone, despite the ribald remarks of the other schoolboys, and even though synchronised swimming is a hitherto female-only sport. When they try to sell some advance tickets to their performance though, they can't sell a single one, until a shopkeeper suggests that they try "that place".
Well, they try that place, which seems to be a sort of drag brothel; the senior one, dressed in traditional Geisha outfit looks a bit forbidding, and wants to know if they will agree that one of them will come and work there after they graduate. Gulp. But that was only a joke, and suddenly she and the other ladies give them the encouragement they need.
The boys bumble through the spring and summer, preparing a routine for Tadano High's festival. They face great adversity: the derision of their fellow students, a swimming pool full of dead fish, and the mounting pressures of college entrance exams. But as they make progress they are joined by many of the other boys, and suddenly they are making progress in their rehearsals, and now it's time for the festival itself. The original Geisha lady comes, clutching her ticket. The kids staffing the entrance want some money from her, but she's got the original advance ticket and she's not going to pay again.
Well, as you must have guessed, the festival is a success; there is a momentary travesty wedding couple (both boys) before they strip off these outfits and dive in the water.
HF March 2005
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Waterboys
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