Waterboys

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Movie: Waterboys
Japanese: ウォーターボーイズ
Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Writer: Shinobu Yaguchi, Yasushi Fukuda
Producer: Yoshino Sasaki, Daisuke Sekiguchi, Akifumi Takuma
Cinematographer: Yuichi Nagata, Shinobu Yaguchi
Release Date: September 15, 2001
Runtime: 90 min.
Genre: Comedy
Production Company: Fuji TV, Toho, Altamira Pictures, DENTSU Music And Entertainment
Distributor: Toho
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan

Plot

It's springtime in Japan and the Tadano High School swim team is barely keeping afloat. When a pretty new coach turns up with the nutty idea of creating a top synchronized swimming team of her own, she has just a few problems to overcome. First, she's teaching at an all-boys school; second, the 5 boys who have committed to the team are all hopelessly bad swimmers; third, she suddenly discovers she's 8 months pregnant and due for maternity leave.

Inspired by their darling coach's dream, 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, the mounting pressures of college entrance exams, and worst of all, their own dismal record of constant failure. Their only encouragement comes from a gaggle of local drag queens and the crazy owner of an aquarium, whose idea of trainin them, is making them polish fish tanks round-the-clock.

When autumn finally rolls around, the boys have not only miraculously perfected a truly unique routine, they've won the respect and participation of a whole crew of new teammates. On the eve of the festival, the performance is threatened by one last catastrophe. Will the Waterboys hard work be wasted, or can they paddle their way to the success and recognition they've worked so hard to win?

Notes

Based on a true story - members of the swimming team at Kawagoe High School, a boy's prep school in Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, dreamed up an unusual event for their school festival: "men's synchronized swimming." Inspired by the popular Olympic synchronized swimming exhibitions on TV, the young men choreographed and successfully performed their own synchronized swimming event.
Related titles:
1. Waterboys (2001)
2. Water Boys (Fuji TV / 2003)
3. Water Boys 2 (Fuji TV / 2004)
4. Water Boys 2005 Summer (Fuji TV / 2005)

Cast

Satoshi Tsumabuki - Suzuki
Hiroshi Tamaki - Sato
Akifumi Miura - Ohta
Koen Kondo - Kanazawa
Takatoshi Kaneko - Saotome
Aya Hirayama - Kiuchi, Shizuko
Kaori Manabe - Mrs. Sakuma
Takashi Kawamura - Ikeuchi
Hiroshi Matsunaga - Mochizuki
Yuya Nishikawa - Sakamoto
Katsuyuki Yamazaki - Yama-chan
Taiyo Sugiura - Taiyo
Kotaro Tanaka - Koutarou
Makoto Ishihara - Makoto
Naoshi Saito - Naoshi
Eiji Moriyama - Yoshida
Kei Tani - Principal of Tadano High School
Yu Tokui
Yosuke Ishii
Daisuke Honda
Taro Iwate - man at scene of fire

Trailer (South Korea)

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Image Gallery

Awards

2002 (25th) Japan Academy Prize - March 8, 2002
- "Outstanding Achievement in Music" (Gakuji Matsuda, Hitomi Shimizu)
- "Rookie of the Year" (Satoshi Tsumabuki)

Comments

Comment #3
Dana Says:
Dec 10 2011 8:16 pm

where can i watch this movie with english subtitles?
Comment #2
masked_alice Says:
Jan 10 2010 8:44 am

i loved it!!! sooooooo funny. i had to catch my breath many times from laughing so much. satoshi was indeed very cute, i've loved him since watching orange days and hiroshi tamaki was well in the dorama, i don't usually like him but here he was pretty funny, they all were.
one of the funniest japanese movies i've watched=)
their swimsuits were so strange to me, they were definitely to thin on the side so i kept laughing at them for it:)
Comment #1
mitzmin Says:
Dec 17 2009 6:36 am

This is one of the best jmovies I have eveer watched!! Satoshi is sooo cute and hiroshi tamaki, well I didn't like him much, but when I watched waterboys I loved hiimm.