Waterboys

Things aren’t looking good for swimming teaching at the Tadano High School. The pool is not kept clean and the swimming team only has one member, Suzuki. The basketball players are already asking whether they can use the pool for their fishing. Even when a beautiful lady swimming coach arrives at the boys’ school with a plan to lead the best synchronised swimming team in the country, only five mediocre swimmers turn up. When she has to take maternity leave almost at once, the swimming team seems doomed. But as belongs in sport films, the team grows under the insults of classmates, the pressure of school exams and the apparent lack of talent. And fortunately, they are supported by a crazy dolphin trainer (Takenaka Naoto, also to be seen in Miike’s Agitator) and a group of transvestites.In other words, Waterboys is a comedy to die for. Beautifully photographed, just like the earlier films by Yaguchi (such as Adrenaline Drive), with a wonderful rhythm and a suitable love of the often clumsy teenagers. The grand (swimming) finale is a real ode to Esther Williams films. The story is based on real events, strangely enough. In addition, no one will be surprised to hear that, in a film in which boys walk round as much as possible in small tight swimming trunks, there is a wealth of gay allusions between the lines.