In his third directorial feature, Josef Kubota Wladyka wanted to capture his mother’s spirit.
“She’s 81 years old, and she’s still competing in ballroom dancing. It’s a deep passion of her life. She’s a cinephile. She loves movies. The whole reason why I love movies is because of her. She used to take me and my brothers to the movies all the time,” Wladyka told TheWrap. “She’s been through some hardships. She was a single mother raising the three of us, and I think the thing that she would say saved her life really was dancing. It’s what got her through it all.”
“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” follows Haru (Rinko Kikuchi), a former ballroom dancer who left the field behind after tragedy struck. After being coaxed back into the world of dance, Haru soon develops feelings for her new instructor, Fedir (Alberto Guerra).
Wladyka, who previously helmed “Manos Sucias” and “Catch the Fair One,” called his latest “by far the most personal” film he’s made. Though he specified that “Ha-Chan” isn’t directly autobiographical, Wladyka shared that the film would not exist without his mother’s life story.
“The whole look of Rinko and everything was all inspired by my mom,” Wladyka said. “The ballroom dresses are very similar to my mom’s dresses. (Kikuchi) studied videos of my mom and I think took some of her mannerisms. It was really powerful to see her take on that character.”
When “Ha-Chan” opened on the first night of Sundance Film Festival 2026, Wladyka called the screening an “emotional” affair for his mother and him (though she still danced with the actors at the afterparty). The film, which received strong reviews at both Sundance and, later, Toronto International Film Festival, got scooped up by Sony Pictures Classics a week after its Jan. premiere — no small feat amid the current festival market.
The film is a change of pace from Wladyka’s previous features, two thrillers that stand apart from the dramedy and musical elements of “Ha-Chan.”
“I know this is Josef’s most personal project, but it’s also, for me, his bravest his boldest,” Alberto Guerra told TheWrap.
Guerra got involved with the project when a mutual friend called about a script for him, saying Wladyka is “a really good director. A good friend. A little crazy.” The actor felt like “Ha-Chan” was difficult to categorize, a multilingual, multi-genre story with a role that stood wholly apart from any other he’d been offered in years as a Latino actor.
“These are people that don’t have a gun in their hand. They don’t have a violent background, per se,” Guerra said. “We’re talking about a couple of dancers and loving people, people that that have feelings. It’s kind of hard when you’re Latino and, you know, you see international filmmakers doing that, and you understand where things have to fit in. But from time to time, it’s so refreshing to get one of these.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Alejandro Edda, who stars in “Ha-Chan” as Luis, Haru’s husband and dance partner.
“Oh, Josef knows me from (‘Narcos: Mexico’), from El Chapo. He needs a Mexican? OK, so it’s gonna be a violent movie. Now I’m going to have to win the audition to be the bad guy,” Edda recalled thinking. “He calls me — totally different thing, and the best thing I could hear from a director that I admire, which was, ‘I want to invite you to be in my movie. I want you to read the script. We’re going to shoot in Tokyo. It’s gonna be a musical, and I want you to offer you the part.’”
“And the opening scene for your character is going to be you shaking your ass,” Guerra added.
“I wish everyone could experience these beautiful kinds of calls, especially in the creative world,” Edda said, turning to Wladyka. “So thank you.”
The post Why a Thriller Filmmaker Made a Cross-Cultural Dancing Dramedy with ‘Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!’ appeared first on TheWrap.
