Popular reviews

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  Review by A Bae ★★★½ 8

  Dear Monica,

  As you once stated to me, Shunji Iwai is one of Japan's greatest and most understated directors. When you first lent me All About Lily Chou Chou... I knew this to be the truth within minutes of watching the film.

  I wish I could have watched Hana & Alice and talked about it with you.

  For now, I have to settle for these late night letters I can't help but write. Maybe if I type these thoughts, you will somehow... hear or feel them.

  Love triangles are one of my least favorite things in the entire world. But I gave this film a try, because of you. It was long... more than a 2 hour length feature? I'll admit,…

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  Review by MrJago ★★★ 2

  I wish this would have stayed a movie about Hana and Alice, the beginning of the film of the two friends just running around is wonderful and full of life.

  But then the love triangle plot starts and even though the boy is really dumb, it's quite cruel what happens and goes on for way too long.

  But then Yu Aoi dances and almost makes you forget about it.

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  Review by Ayush ★★★★½ 13

  Of cherry blossoms and trains, stalking and amnesia. Of ballet and rakugo. Of friends sticking together through thick and thin. Of morally questionable choices in the name of love, and the seemingly unending stream of tears while confessing your misdeeds. Of being young and stupid and finding eccentricity in a life of mundanity, because what is life without a little coruscant colour in the sea of black and white?

  Hana and Alice possesses an ineffable sense of universality owing to the core of the titular characters' relationship; Iwai's take on teenage friendships just can't be manufactured, and it is very rarely paralleled. The simplest of moments—ranging from conversations with an air of conflict, silly actions in the name of love,…

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  Review by LEXI ★★★½

  Hana and Alice's friendship is cute and funny but somehow got annoyed by the majority of them gaslighting the poor boy together. That Alice's ballet dance is really fantastic!

  See, you really should pay attention while walking on the street!

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  Review by DNA cinephile🏳️‍🌈 ★★★★½

  Hana and Alice. 2004. Shunji Iwai.

  When we view Japanese Cinema, there are few films that can compare with A Bride for Rip Van Winkle (2016), Love Letter (1995), April Story (1998) and Hana and Alice (2004). Shunji Iwai is at the top of our pantheon of Japanese auteurs. After my surgery Hana and Alice was the perfect balm. At the heart of Hana and Alice is friendship. Norbu Shinoda’s cinematography is dreamy and I adore his radial/circumferential blurs. In addition, his ability to alter depth of field to focus on the scene and allow us to see the beauty of the green leaves, blue sky, waves in the ocean, patterns in the sand, and the beautiful art of ballet.…

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  Review by chuzen ★★★★★ 2

  put it way in the back of a drawer.
  keep it there.
  someday...
  you see it there...
  and think of me.

  first love portrayed as many of us will eventually remember it (or hope to remember it) - clumsily and yet affectionately, illogical even if our hearts tell us otherwise, with the poignancy that inevitably befalls upon all such relationships.

  one of the few shunji iwai films where a (love) letter isn’t prominent in the story, but it doesn’t need one - hana & alice is itself iwai’s love letter to us all.

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  Review by Drew Edelstein ★★★★

  The best movie about love, ballet and romantic gaslighting ever made!

  The titular duo are absolutely magnetic whenver they share the screen, their friendship the anchor to one of the strangest love triangles ever put to screen. There's a really special sense of buoyant innocence that never lets the film drift into territory that could ever be accused of being truly heavy, especially given just how messed up it's premise really is; this is antithetical to the Shunji Iwai that made All About Lily Chou-Chou, but it's the perfect fit for a story that excels most in the smallest of moments, utilizing it's slice-of-life atmosphere to explore just how goddamn weird it is to be a teenager as empathetically as…

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  Review by matt 🍜 ★★★★½

  hana and alice school of lying and gaslighting

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  Review by PlaguDocta ★★★★★

  Last Train At 25 O'Clock. Paper cups will fly. There is emotion (editing). The individuality is pure (and could disjoint some). Scrambling the innocent silly lives doesn't pay. Though the tricky young love might. Unless if the revelations catch up to this. Or the memories. Or maybe even the floating Astro Boy in front of the window.

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  Review by Dizzle_Sizzle ★★★★½ 6

  A way to live as you learn as accepted by two best friends departing from the same platform. The trains are moving in opposite directions on circuitous tracks, and will inevitably pass each other at intervals with lapses that punctuate each other's absence. Love's potentiality remains at the forefront at the expense of a particular, unfortunate man whose feelings ring truest over all of what's been put upon him, yet these individuals are works in progress. Apart, these two friends are a mess, struggling against a current that offers little in the way of comfort, acting as they act as they do to perpetuate something unreal in between commiserating and practicing and perfecting a literal art form, but what happens…

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  Review by lee ray ★★★★

  literally can’t stop thinking about the giant astro boy in the background of a serious scene...but seriously, this is a good film! shunji iwai is truly a master

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  Review by ALISTAIR LEACH ★★★★

  Man and I thought that Tezuka High School, would have been a throw away line, like The Kinoshita Factory in the Sex Check...

  Like a big comfy, warm blanket I cover myself with another Shunji Iwai film. A very moving tale of two young women ascending into adulthood, finding their way, falling in love (badly) and failing in their friendships toward each other.

  I've not seen the anime yet to see their previous adventures (that will be on order), but from the opening of the film, we see a very joyful story of two people, which weirdly reminds me in moments of a social realist version Céline and Julie Go Boating or a reversed Desperately Seeking Susan. Possibly, this is…