Swing Girls - my verdict

Finished watching Swing Girls this afternoon after getting it from Yaoming this very same afternoon...
Ah... it's nice and funny, but quite unrealistic. You might want to take a look at SH's entry on it first, it sums up the movie pretty well. By motivational I suppose it means after watching it a person would want to pick up an instrument and play as well. It would work, if not for a little tiny hitch:

It takes aeons to learn an instrument properly and to play like how they did in the movie.

The beginning of the movie was pretty correct in describing how to start learning an instrument. They really struggled through it, and the first piece of music they played together really sounds real. Out of tune, different or even a wrong sense of feel, but the sound and the melody's somewhat there. Then after a majority of the girls dropped out of the idea of formation of the Big Band, close to the end of the movie, after they saw how the 4 girls and guy played, they bought their own instruments and joined in just like that. That's the really unrealistic part. People don't just pick up an instrument and then join in like that and play like that after quite some time of rest. And that high note the girl (with the mouse) tried to reach is not something that most can easily achieve after such a short period of time.

The rest of the movie's great, though. Quite hilarious, though it's not something I would spend money to catch in the cinema. Firstly because well it's just not something I'd pay for, and secondly, I'd probably be laughing the loudest in the cinema. =P And that mouse! So cute! However, it's a great movie for me because it reminds me of what I'm playing for.

There was a portion in the beginning where they had to leave the band room because the band finally recovered from the food poisoning and they started bawling after walking some distance away. Very sad and touching but also funny, the way they cried. Oh I almost forgot, that band competition featured is a real competition held in Japan, according to Shuping. We've watched the videos of that before when we were still in XMSB and Miss Tan let us watch them. Bands in there are really good. Then again, Japan bands are good. Far better than us.

So yes, my verdict? Nice movie to watch, pass the time with and laugh, but don't believe everything in it. As a motivational movie, it isn't too bad, but I still think "Drumline" would make a far better motivational movie. Swing Girls would exceed Drumline in terms of humour and in terms of music, no comparison, both are about different things, although I do find Drumline very much more thrilling in a musical sense (and much more real). Want to watch Drumline? I've got the DVD!