Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. When a rundown strip theater in Hiroshima announced a few years back that it was closing, the public response was such that the owner decided to go on with the show — repeatedly.
It’s still open now, which gave Hiroshima native Hideyuki Tokigawa time to write and direct a loving, feature-length tribute. As the title screen at the start of “Dancing in Her Dreams” makes clear, the film’s story may be fiction, but its inspirations are very real.
In the age of internet porn, why would anyone fork out ¥5,000 to watch someone disrobe? It’s a question that Tokigawa’s script never gets tired of asking, often in none-too-subtle terms. The answers it comes up with often sound like a drunkard philosophizing at the end of an all-night bender, but that’s in keeping with the overall wooziness of the project.