Christianne Gout herself is a reason for me to watch the 2000's Salsa & Amor, and expectantly some good dancing she gave in the film.
Salsa
It was named Salsa so it seemed wrong not to compare it with Salsa: the Motion Picture (1988). Both movies offered some awesome dancing, MP gave the audiences an abundance of dancing in which half of them were solo since Rico was such a cocky man, while Amor captured mainly partnered dancing with a little solo that was acted as part of the show.
Amor
It was hot in La Luna and people were salsa-ing for fun, however, in Paris Remi and others were living salsa. I mean yes dancing had become a pop culture and thanks to that different dances have been passed along and evolved to their present forms. However, living out the spirit is another issue. The dance itself bears the personality which is tightly related to its origin. Here in Amor, Christine did a very good job presenting the Cuban way of love- strong like thunder, hot like fire. Ar I won't forget to mention the Latino grandparents' straight, sharp, pure and long-lasting love. That's amazing (even though it's just part of the movie).
Salsa & Amor
It is not fair to judge the French-Spanish movie as I speak neither of them, which obviously I needed to depend on the subtitles, which means I was completely relying on the translation work, but unfortunately quality of translation work for less famous productions ranges a large range. Assuming it was translated to what it meant to, it had a poor plot. The Grandfather had changed quite dramatically, Remi had learnt to be Cuban too easily, Natalie had danced too hot too soon, people's love and hate went too extremely and changed from one end to the other end too drastically...
Well, I was asked whether Salsa & Amor was another story of prodigal son, um... not really, he didn't mean to deceive Nat, 'transforming' himself had become a survival problem- no relation, no work, no money, no anything other than the incredible piano skill, adopting a stage name and self-tan in order to survive seemed not too wrong. The only act I couldn't agree with was the making-up of a poor family, trying to compose the fake family as genuine as possible.