The maxim from Ecclesiastes that "There is nothing new under the sun" applies especially to the movie business. "Swing Girls," a 2004 smash about a high-school girls swing band, begat "Hula Girls," a 2006 hit about a hula dance troupe in a 1960s mining town, which begat "Kanki no Uta (Ode to Joy)," a new film about two housewife chorus groups that, through a scheduling error, end up sharing the same stage.
All right, I'm using the Biblical "begat" ironically, but these and other Japanese films about musical zeros who become audience-conquering heroes share a strong family resemblance.
This subgenre is hardly unknown in the West, but Hollywood and European filmmakers tend to find their musical heroes in rock bands ("The Commitments," "The Leningrad Cowboys") or singers ("Rose," "Glitter"), not schoolgirls making like Benny Goodman or housewives warbling Beethoven.