Halfway (2010)

Country: Japan
Genre: romance, school
Format: movie
Cast: Kitano Kie, Okada Masaki, Narimiya Hiroki, Naka Riisa, Mizobata Junpei
Synopsis:Hiro (Kitano Kie) and Shu (Okada Masaki) are in last year of high school and they start dating. Their relationship is going to be darkened by the fear and changes of tomorrow as Hiro is going to attend in local university, but Shu has always wished to go to Tokyo.
Rating: 2/5
I have read the original manga. It is amazing how similar the actors are with original characters. For spoiler, the manga and movie have different endings. As it really is a shoujo-manga, then manga has actually unrealistic end, that´s why I liked the movie ending more.

Actors were just great. They totally pulled it off - .^ Specially I liked Kitano Kie, but I did not like her character. Her eyes are amazing.

It is another Kitagawa Eriko´s works. That explains why the movie is just going in a slow-motion. There is no big happenings, mostly about one thing and that´s all. In addition, if you have seen other Kitagawa Eriko´s works, then you should know that the female lead is cry-baby, egoistic and childish. Hiro really cries a lot... it is not even crying, it is whining like a baby! (But it is understandable, when it is a baby, but for 17-18 year old girl it is really childish.). (BTW. If you think that I just do not like Kitagawa´s work, then wait til Sunao ni Narenakute review or read it, and you might change your mind. It seems like they have used hand-camera for filming and there is very few montage done, many raw cuts and it is very documentary-like. In some ways it is really fascinating, but it doesn´t work for that story. It seems like you are entering to someones personal life.

The reason why it did not get higher rating is that it was tooo slow and I did not enjoyed it. I just do not understand how can one girl be so childish!!!
I totally love Narimiya Hiroki and Naka Riisa (They acted together in "Yankee-kun to Megane-chan"), but sadly they did not have any screentime together this time. They both are still so great ^^ I would like to see them acting together more. They have a chemistry on screen ^^