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This review may contain spoilers
10 DANCE: When Rivalry Becomes Romance
I came to this film as a manga reader, and honestly, I was nervous. The source material is one of those rare BL stories that takes both the sport and the romance seriously: two professional dancers at the peak of their careers, forced to master each other’s specialties to survive the brutal 10 Dance format. The tension between Suzuki and Sugiki works because they are genuine equals, clashing on and off the floor. Translating that to live action felt like a huge risk, especially for the dancing, which is the backbone of the story.
I went in as a Keita Machida fan and came out obsessed with Ryoma Takeuchi too. Machida’s Sugiki is all control and precision, the Standard champion who keeps everything ruthlessly locked down. Takeuchi’s Suzuki has the swagger and physicality you expect from a Latin dancer, but there is real emotional fragility underneath the bravado. What sells it is how fully committed they both are to the actual dancing. This is not actors faking it with doubles; you can see the work in their bodies in every movement.
The dance sequences are where everything clicks. There is an early rehearsal where Suzuki teaches Sugiki a rumba walk, and you catch every tiny adjustment in posture, every weight shift, every moment where Sugiki’s stiffness starts to melt. The camera stays close enough that you see the hand placements, the tension in their frames, and the way their bodies have to negotiate through touch. Later, when Sugiki has to follow instead of lead in the Viennese waltz, the frustration in his face and body says everything about his terror of surrender. By the final performance, they are pulling together everything they have taken from each other: Suzuki’s fire braided with Standard discipline, Sugiki’s control flooded with Latin heat. It is technically impressive, but it hits hardest because these two people who have been orbiting each other finally move as one.
What grounds all of this is the specific reality of competitive ballroom. This world is rigid and hierarchical, built on traditional gender roles, fixed lead and follow dynamics, and heteronormative partnerships. When two men dance together as equals, swapping lead and follow and treating each other as true partners instead of rivals, that is not just romantic. It is disruptive. Choosing connection in a space designed around comparison and ranking reads as its own quiet act of defiance.
The chemistry between Takeuchi and Machida is ridiculous. Every charged look, every lingering touch during practice, every moment where competition blurs into something else feels inevitable but never cheap. The restraint makes it sharper. You are leaning forward, waiting for them to close the distance, and when they finally dance together in that last sequence, the intimacy lands like a confession even though the film stays relatively chaste. That is how you do slow burn in BL: the choreography carries the confession the script never verbalizes.
And yes, this should have been a series. The ending is both satisfying and maddening. You get emotional payoff, but it is very clearly only a midpoint in their story. There is so much more to explore, professionally, romantically, and psychologically, that you can practically feel the missing episodes. It plays less like closure and more like a pilot still waiting for its next season.
I have read the critics calling it too cautious, joking that it needed a chastity coordinator, and faulting it for not fully committing as a queer romance. As an exercise in pure film criticism, you can argue the caution. But as a BL viewer who knows what this genre usually delivers on screen, this is still the standout BL film of the year. The bar for BL cinema is often pretty, tropey, and thin, especially on the big screen. 10 DANCE aims higher, even if it does not swing for the fences in every area.
Most BL gives you surface romance with minimal character work and sports as aesthetic wallpaper. This gives you complicated adults with real ambitions and vulnerabilities, a romance built on mutual respect and earned connection, and dance sequences that actually move the story forward. The restraint reads as maturity, not timidity. The slow burn feels compelling rather than withholding because the film trusts you to read the subtext: to understand what a lingering touch means, to catch the shifts in frame and footwork, and to feel the weight of what never gets said out loud. That is sophisticated storytelling, and it is exactly what this genre needs more of.
If you loved the manga, this respects the core while making smart, medium specific adaptation choices. If you are new to 10 DANCE, it is a gorgeous entry point. And if you care about BL that is ambitious, technically crafted, and emotionally literate, this is essential viewing. Just be ready for that final stretch to leave you desperate for a sequel, and probably already drafting your comment to Netflix asking for one.
I went in as a Keita Machida fan and came out obsessed with Ryoma Takeuchi too. Machida’s Sugiki is all control and precision, the Standard champion who keeps everything ruthlessly locked down. Takeuchi’s Suzuki has the swagger and physicality you expect from a Latin dancer, but there is real emotional fragility underneath the bravado. What sells it is how fully committed they both are to the actual dancing. This is not actors faking it with doubles; you can see the work in their bodies in every movement.
The dance sequences are where everything clicks. There is an early rehearsal where Suzuki teaches Sugiki a rumba walk, and you catch every tiny adjustment in posture, every weight shift, every moment where Sugiki’s stiffness starts to melt. The camera stays close enough that you see the hand placements, the tension in their frames, and the way their bodies have to negotiate through touch. Later, when Sugiki has to follow instead of lead in the Viennese waltz, the frustration in his face and body says everything about his terror of surrender. By the final performance, they are pulling together everything they have taken from each other: Suzuki’s fire braided with Standard discipline, Sugiki’s control flooded with Latin heat. It is technically impressive, but it hits hardest because these two people who have been orbiting each other finally move as one.
What grounds all of this is the specific reality of competitive ballroom. This world is rigid and hierarchical, built on traditional gender roles, fixed lead and follow dynamics, and heteronormative partnerships. When two men dance together as equals, swapping lead and follow and treating each other as true partners instead of rivals, that is not just romantic. It is disruptive. Choosing connection in a space designed around comparison and ranking reads as its own quiet act of defiance.
The chemistry between Takeuchi and Machida is ridiculous. Every charged look, every lingering touch during practice, every moment where competition blurs into something else feels inevitable but never cheap. The restraint makes it sharper. You are leaning forward, waiting for them to close the distance, and when they finally dance together in that last sequence, the intimacy lands like a confession even though the film stays relatively chaste. That is how you do slow burn in BL: the choreography carries the confession the script never verbalizes.
And yes, this should have been a series. The ending is both satisfying and maddening. You get emotional payoff, but it is very clearly only a midpoint in their story. There is so much more to explore, professionally, romantically, and psychologically, that you can practically feel the missing episodes. It plays less like closure and more like a pilot still waiting for its next season.
I have read the critics calling it too cautious, joking that it needed a chastity coordinator, and faulting it for not fully committing as a queer romance. As an exercise in pure film criticism, you can argue the caution. But as a BL viewer who knows what this genre usually delivers on screen, this is still the standout BL film of the year. The bar for BL cinema is often pretty, tropey, and thin, especially on the big screen. 10 DANCE aims higher, even if it does not swing for the fences in every area.
Most BL gives you surface romance with minimal character work and sports as aesthetic wallpaper. This gives you complicated adults with real ambitions and vulnerabilities, a romance built on mutual respect and earned connection, and dance sequences that actually move the story forward. The restraint reads as maturity, not timidity. The slow burn feels compelling rather than withholding because the film trusts you to read the subtext: to understand what a lingering touch means, to catch the shifts in frame and footwork, and to feel the weight of what never gets said out loud. That is sophisticated storytelling, and it is exactly what this genre needs more of.
If you loved the manga, this respects the core while making smart, medium specific adaptation choices. If you are new to 10 DANCE, it is a gorgeous entry point. And if you care about BL that is ambitious, technically crafted, and emotionally literate, this is essential viewing. Just be ready for that final stretch to leave you desperate for a sequel, and probably already drafting your comment to Netflix asking for one.
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