Halfway movie synopsis, images and trailer

 Quickie breakdown: Hiro (Kie Kitano) and Shuu (Masaki Okada) start dating in high school. Falling deep into first love romance they have almost forgotten about being a halfway between adult life and graduation, but happy days are interrupted by a single fact - Hiro is planning to apply for local Hokkaido university, but Shuu is going to leave Hokkaido and enter Tokyo university. The couple is on their first hard decision thinking over priorities in their life.

 This is truly one of the best films in recent years from Japan and that's really saying a lot for this film. Not a film that will go down in the books as a masterpiece but as far as entertainment value goes this should be at the top of anyone's list. Funny, sweet, sad, reflective and solid acting really make this a must watch, though more directed towards the teen audience anyone from any age can really relate to this young couples plight.

 The acting in the film is top notch, Kie Kitano does a superb job as Hiro, who finally had the boy of her dreams ask her out and now he may be leaving her, her character is just so sweet, daffy, stubborn and airheaded, such a great job by Kie. As a matter of fact liked her so much in this have gone on to see 4 more of her films which though are not as good as this one she still does a solid job in all of them, will be looking at a few of them in the future.

 Also a nice effort by Okada in the film too, his character is quite laid back and very confused at what to do in the future, it gets settled by the film's end and luckily for us in a high quality and not fluffy way. Really every scene in the movie has either Kitano or Okada in it, while many other characters none really has a big part in it though all do a good job with the little screen presence they have.

 Final summary of the movie would be a rating of 9.5/10, it's hard to hit the magic number of 10 but this is as good of a film as you will see. You may not laugh or cry but you'll have a smile on your face the whole time viewing it, I've already seen it 3 times and many more watches of it will be coming up in the future, strongly recommend this film.
 Check further down for the cast info plus the trailer which is subbed, also the next post has many, many images of Kie from the film.

Year: 2009  Length: 85 minutes  Director: Eriko Kitagawa

Cast:

Hiro- Kie Kitano
Shuu- Masaki Okada
Megumi- Riisa Naka
Takanashi- Hiroki Narimiya
Hirabayashi- Takao Osawa
Tasu- Junpei Mizobata
Naoko- Miho Shiraishi