Love Letter

“No one knows that this kind of thing only makes sense to do it secretly.”

Directed by Produced by

Written by Starring

Music by Cinematography Edited by Distributed by Release date

Running time Country Language Box office

Shunji Iwai Tomoki Ikeda Jiro Komaki Masahiko Nagasawa Shunji Iwai Miho Nakayama Etsushi Toyokawa Bunjaku Han Miki Sakai Takashi Kashiwabara Ranran Suzuki The Pillows, Remedios Noboru Shinoda Shunji Iwai Fine Line Features March 25, 1995 June 12, 1998 (U.S.) 117 minutes Japan Japanese ¥8,500,760,900

PLOT

Hiroko Watanabe lives in Kobe and has lost her fiancé Itsuki Fujii in a mountain climbing accident. On the day of his memorial ceremony, two years after his death, Hiroko looks through his highschool yearbook at his parents’ house. Mrs. Fujii explains that they used to live in Otaru, and that their old house is now replaced by a highway. Nevertheless, Hiroko records the address she sees under the name “Itsuki Fujii” in the yearbook, and decides to write him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply from Fujii. Unsure who sent the reply, she keeps writing and finds out it was not from her dead fiancé, but from a woman also named Itsuki Fujii who went to high school with her fiancé and bears a striking resemblance to Hiroko. The movie cuts back and forth between Hiroko and Female Itsuki based on the letters they send to each other.

Miho Nakayama as Itsuki Fujii and Hiroko Watanabe Etsushi Toyokawa as Akiba Shigeru Bunjaku Han as female Itsuki Fujii’s mother Katsuyuki Shinohara as female Itsuki Fujii’s grandfather Miki Sakai as Itsuki Fujii as a young girl Takashi Kashiwabara as male Itsuki Fujii Ranran Suzuki as Sanae Oikawa

Love Letter is a 1995 Japanese film directed by Shunji Iwai and starring Miho Nakayama. The film was shot almost entirely on the island of Hokkaidō, mainly in the city of Otaru.

Love Letter became a box-office hit in Japan and later in other east Asian countries, most notably South Korea, where it was one of the first Japanese films to be shown in cinemas since World War II. In South Korea it was the tenth highest grossing general release of the year with 645,615 admissions.

Director Shunji Iwai hired Noboru Shinoda as cinematographer and the collaboration between the two produced a film praised for its evocative winter cinematography.

Iwai cast pop singer Miho Nakayama in the dual roles of Hiroko Watanabe and Itsuki Fujii. The film also launched the movie career of teenager Miki Sakai who won ‘Newcomer of the Year’ Award in the Japanese Academy Awards for her portrayal of Itsuki Fujii as a young girl. The main male roles were played by Etsushi Toyokawa as Akiba Shigeru and Takashi Kashiwabara as the male Itsuki Fujii.

Fine Line Features acquired all American distribution rights of Love Letter ; Fine Line Features released this movie in the United States theatrically under the new title When I Close My Eyes.