Independent Film Review – Dark Feathers: Dance of the Geisha

So…what do we have here then? I’ll be honest, after I’d watched Dark Feathers: Dance of the Geisha I still wasn’t really sure. The majority of the action appears to take place in a ballroom dancing/organised crime subset of the Japanese community in San Francisco. I know that ballroom dancing and organised crime don’t usually go together but, well, we are in movie land and there tend to be many odd bedfellows. I’m saying organised crime but there is nothing obvious shown to indicate Yakuza going’s on in The Heritage but there are more grim looking silent chaps in black suits and sunglasses hanging around than usual.

The ballroom dancing is undeniable though. After a card explaining what geisha are we cut straight to a couple in a dancing practice room. After the opening credits the first scene see is Kate (Crystal J Huang) walking down Geary Boulevard and turning onto 33^rd Avenue. She uses a keypad to enter a building but doesn’t notice someone grabbing the door before it closes. As she is about to unlock her flat she notices her follower and heads for the roof instead. Here she confronts her stalker and it is her ex-boyfriend, Jerry (Rico Simonini). He wants them to get back together to the extent of saying that if she doesn’t he’ll jump off the roof. She doesn’t and he jumps off the roof.

If A Body Hits The Ground When People Are About…

Now this is where things start to get a bit shaky…Kate is on a crossroads in San Francisco in the middle of the day. There are people wandering about yet no one does or says anything when Jerry hits the pavement. There is even a bus on that corner and two people have to walk either next  to the body if not step over it. Anyway, that is just the first four minutes. There is next a drone shot of the Golden Gate Bridge to announce that we’re in San Francisco. We cut to a dark bar where two chaps are sitting. For some reason they get free beer. One is James (Scott Lea) and the other is Remy (Gilles Marini). The reason is that James is police and Remy used to be. 

James tells Remy about the Jerry jumping and shows him CCTV still of his time on the roof with Kate. From this Remy deduces that Kate must be a ballroom dancer. It turns out that Remy’s wife, Amelia (Karina Smirnoff) owns a ballroom dance studio and Remy thinks that he may have seen Kate there. Besides Jerry, it seems that all of Kate’s previous dance partners have come to sticky ends. In order to get to the bottom of this Remy decides to become Kate’s new partner. As anyone who has read the tabloids three quarters of the way through a season of Strictly knows the intense physicality of ballroom dancing oftentimes leads to a connection of the relationship shaking type.

…Does It Prompt A Reaction?

And this, among others, are the plot threads which get intertwined. How that particular thread shapes up I won’t say but it is one of many. I also have to say it’s not always clear what’s going on. The organised crime thing I mentioned earlier might not have actually been organised crime…they are Samurai led by Kensei (Michael Madsen) but they may be good guys. As well as plot disorganisation there are a few of script errors; does Kensei mean to say “I don’t think the mission must not be interrupted”? Similarly, a few minutes later, there is a scene when a car drives off from Kate and a drone flies off after it. The next scene looks like it was shot from that same drone which made me wonder if we were meant to see it?

But those slips are doubtless due to the size of the budget which I’m guessing was small. Doubtless a fair amount of it will have gone to Michael Madsen who, while having less than five minutes of screen time still manages to exude his effortless cool blended with threat. The actors would have earned a fair amount due to them being selected for their ballroom dancing skills. They are all professionals or contestants on Strictly Come Dancing or the overseas versions which followed. As a result all the dance scenes are beautifully performed. The whole film is beautifully shot. If the story feels a bit slow or confused you can just sit back and enjoy the images. There is one scene which will stay with you. It involves a passing out test similar to the walking on rice paper in Kung Fu. This one involves a walnut and a body part which limits the exercise to women…

Dark Feathers: Dance of the Geisha is released on digital on 4^th November from Miracle Media

Independent Film Grade – C+