Ninety-one minutes of wet Japanese boys: I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. For those that need further convincing, Waterboys is also piss-funny. It’s a simple story, about a boys high school swim team. Team membership goes from one to fifty when the boys find their new coach is a girl, then back to five when she wants them to do synchronized swimming. Bummer. They’ll be called nancies if they succeed, and losers if they don’t.
If you’ve ever tried to stay afloat with one leg in the air, you’ll know how difficult synchro is. If you haven’t, I suggest you try. Then you’ll appreciate these boys in their quest, a quest which includes fish-flinging, dolphin fun, a transvestite geisha club, a flaming afro, and of course the main goal of teenage boys: teenage girls. Not all the boys are girl-mad, though: one is a maths geek, another strips down to a g-string to build up some muscle, while a third harbours a secret passion for another.
This film is light years ahead of the average teen comedy. There’s no moral lessons, no bad guys who get humiliated, and no parents: just five Japanese boys, some fish, some dolphins, and lots of water.